in spite of the demonstrations of the men; only three sturdy ones
with "great souls" remained and were "taken" after having been duly
"shaken" with fears.

The Tepehuanes feel at home only in their ranches. They clear land in
the numerous little valleys of which their rugged country consists,
and plant corn in places where no plough could ever be used.

They always have sufficient corn for their wants. Their store-houses
are square upright cribs of bamboo sticks held in place with withes
on a framework of pine poles. Sometimes they stand at considerable
distances from the dwellings. The floor is raised about a foot above
the ground, and the entrance is made from the top. The ears of corn
can plainly be seen behind the bamboo sticks. In March they are taken
out and shelled, and the corn is put in home-made sacks and replaced
in the store-houses.

The Tepehuanes make pulque, but not tesvino, and cotton is cultivated
on a very small scale. They gather the fibre of the maguey and other
plants, and make sacks and ropes of excellent quality, for their own
use as well as for sale in Durango, to which market they also take
any fruit not required for home consumption.

Their only amusement is to drink mescal and pulque. No games are
in use, and to stake money or valuables in any of the "neighbours'"
games is forbidden.

The commonest disease here, strange to say, is malaria, which
sometimes proves fatal. The first thing a Tepehuane does in the
morning is to wash his head, face, and hands with cold water, letting
it dry without wiping it off. He starts to do his work with the water
dripping from him.

The Southern Tepehuanes perform a religious dance called by the
Mexicans _mitote_; it is also found among the Aztecs, the Coras,
and the Huichols. In the vicinity of Lajas is a circular plain set
pleasantly among the oak-trees. This is the dancing-place. At its
eastern side is a jacal, a gable-shaped straw-roof resting on four
poles, the narrow sides standing east and west. Inside of it is found
an altar, consisting simply of a matting of large, split bamboo sticks
(_tapexte_) resting on a framework of four horizontal poles, which
in turn are supported by two pairs of upright forked sticks. On this
altar the people put the food used at the dances, and many ceremonial
objects are placed here or hung under the roof of the jacal.

In regard to their native religion, they are as reticent as their
northern brethren, if not more so. "I would rather be hanged than
tell anything," said one shaman to me. Still, all things come to
him who waits. This very man, who was so tragic, became my friend,
and when we parted he asked me to write my name on a piece of paper,
that he might salute me every morning. A name is a sacred thing,
and they never tell their real native names.

Nowhere else in Mexico have the institutions founded by the
missionaries of early times remained intact as in Lajas. Not only so,
but the regulations are carried even further than was originally
intended, and this in spite of the fact that the Indians have not
given up their own ancient religion. No priest is now living among
them; and only at rare intervals does the Cura come from Pueblo Nuevo
to baptise and malry.

The native chosen civil authorities are composed of fourteen,
the ecclesiastical of seven members. The gobernador has supreme
authority with both bodies, and when important matters are at issue
the people are brought together and consulted. The decisions or
orders are given to the so-called captain, who sees that they are
carried into effect. The officers are elected every year, and meet
in sessions almost every day, to settle the affairs of the people,
and to inflict punishment even on the shamans when necessary. They
have recently renovated the prison, and put in a new set of stocks;
and the whipping-post is still in constant use, to supplement the laws
of the Mexican Government, which are considered altogether too mild.

The punishments which these people inflict are severe and barbarous. I
have heard that Mexican criminals, who have been caught and punished
by them, on complaining of their harsh treatment to the government
authorities, did not receive any sympathy, the latter no doubt
considering it meritorious rather than otherwise, on the part of
the Indians, to maintain order so effectually without the aid of
soldiers. The captain in Lajas is on duty day and night, watching
that nothing untoward may happen to man, beast, or property. But
few strangers come to this remote pueblo, and no one can pass
it unnoticed. The only trail that runs through the place is swept
every afternoon with branches of trees, and the next morning it is
examined by the captain to ascertain if anyone has gone by. White
men are wisely prohibited from settling here; and when a "neighbour"
comes, his business is at once inquired into, and sufficient time,
perhaps a night and a day, is given him to attend to it, after which
he is escorted out of the village.

Safety to life and property is thus insured among these Indians. "I
guarantee you that none of your animals will be stolen here,"
Crescencio said to me the first night, and a very short experience
convinced me that he was right. Theft is practically unknown here,
unless some "neighbour" tempts an Indian with a promise of a part of
the booty.

Murder is committed only by intoxicated individuals, and then the
culprit is chained in the stocks for three or four weeks, and gets a
whipping at regular intervals. Afterward he is sent to the Mexican
authorities in the city of Durango to be dealt with according to
the law.

There is no capital punishment for murder in Mexico, and when criminals
have served their terms and return to their native village the Indians
may even send them back to Durango, saying that they are better off
without them. Suicide is unknown. When murder or theft has been
perpetrated, they do not at once try to apprehend the suspected
person, but first call the shaman to ascertain by divination who
the culprit may be, by placing ceremonial arrows, smoking tobacco,
and waving plumes.

I was told that three years ago two travelling Mexican peddlers
arrived here, and after having done a little trading went away
without informing the authorities of their departure. This aroused
the suspicion of the Indians, who began to look around to see what
was missing. Two cows, it seemed, had disappeared, and in two days
the peddlers were overtaken, brought back, put in the stocks, and
held in prison for eight days, and three times a day they received
a thrashing. They had very little food. They were finally taken
to Durango.

Once two cows and an ox were stolen from Crescencio, and the Indians
followed the tracks of the thieves, their leader frequently touching
the earth with his hands to assure himself by the smell that they
were going in the right direction. After a while two Tepehuanes and
their accomplice, the "neighbour" who had put them up to the crime,
were caught. The "neighbour," as soon as he arrived in the village,
was given twenty-five lashes, and for two hours was subjected to the
agonizing torture of having his head and his feet in the stocks at
the same time. Next day he was given ten lashes, and the following
day five, and eight days later they took him to Durango. His two
Indian associates, father and son, were also put in the stocks, and
for two weeks each of them got daily four lashes and very little food;
besides which their blankets were taken away from them.

Although the Tepehuanes keep up their ancient rites and beliefs along
with the new religion, they strictly comply with the external form
of Christianity, paying due attention to all the Christian feasts and
observances. Every day the bells of the old church are rung, and the
saints "are put to bed," as the Indians express it. When Crescencio
first came here he found the people on Sundays in the church, the men
sitting on benches and the women on the floor. They had gathered there
from habit, though nobody knew how to pray, and they sat around talking
and laughing all the time. It was their Christian worship. Crescencio
has now taught them to say prayers.

The teachings of Christianity, however, are for the most part
forgotten. No trace of the religion of charity remains among them, but
the severity of the early missionaries survives, and their mediæval
system of punishment. Evidently the tribe always entertained extreme
views regarding the relation of the two sexes toward each other,
or else the spirit of the new law would never have been imbibed so
eagerly. "The slightest want of modesty or exhibition of frivolity is
sufficient reason for a husband to leave his wife, and for young women
never to marry," says Padre Juan Fonte, of the Tepehuane Indians. There
is no sign of relaxation in their strictness, or of any inclination
to adopt more modern views on marital misdemeanour.

In the greater number of cases husband and wife live happily together
"till death doth them part." If either should prove unfaithful, they
immediately separate, the wife leaving the children with the husband
and going to her parents. Then the guilty one and the correspondent
are punished by being put in the stocks and given a public whipping
daily for one or two weeks. Neither of the parties thus separated is
permitted to marry again.

If a girl or widow has loved "not wisely, but too well," she is not
interfered with until her child is born. A day or two after that she
and the baby are put into prison for eight or ten days, and she is
compelled to divulge the name of her partner. The man is then arrested
and not only put into prison, but in the stocks besides. There are no
stocks for women, only two horizontal bars to which their hands are
tied, if they refuse to betray their lovers. The two culprits are kept
separate, and their families bring them food. Twice a day messengers
are sent through the village to announce that the punishment is about
to be executed, and many people come to witness it. The judges and the
parents of the delinquents reprimand the unfortunate couple, then from
two to four lashes are on each occasion inflicted, first upon the man
and then upon the woman. These are applied to an unmentionable part
of the back, which is bared, the poor wretches standing with their
hands tied to the pole. The executioner is given mescal that he may
be in proper spirit to strike hard. The woman has to look on while
the man is being punished, just as he afterward has to witness his
sweetheart's chastisement. She opens her eyes "like a cow," as my
informant expressed it, while the man generally looks down.

Many times the judges are ashamed to go through this performance,
the character of which is below the standard of propriety of most
primitive tribes; but, strange to say, the parents themselves compel
them to let the law have its course. Afterward the girl is handed over
to her lover in order that they may become officially married by the
Church the next time the priest arrives. This may not happen for two
or three years, but the two are meanwhile allowed to live together,
the girl going to her lover's home. To avert all the misery in store
for her, an unfortunate woman may try to doctor herself by secretly
taking a decoction of the leaves of the chalate, a kind of fig-tree.

Sometimes punishment is dealt out to young people for being
found talking together. Outside of her home a woman is absolutely
forbidden to speak to any man who does not belong to her own immediate
family. When fetching water, or out on any other errand, she must under
no circumstances dally for a chat with a "gentleman friend." Even
at the dancing-place it is against the law for her to step aside
to exchange a few words with any young man. If discovered in such a
compromising position, both offenders are immediately arrested, and
their least punishment is two days' imprisonment. If their examination
by the judges proves that their conversation was on the forbidden
topic of love, they get a whipping and may be compelled to marry.

Some of the boys and girls who have been punished for talking together
in this manner, are so frightened that they never want to marry
in Lajas, but the more defiant ones deliberately allow themselves
to be caught, in order to hasten their union and steal a march on
their parents. For these Indians are by no means beyond the darts
of Cupid, and both men and women are known to have arranged with a
shaman to influence the objects of their tender thoughts, and have
paid him for such service. A woman may give a shaman a wad of cotton,
which he manages to put into the hand of the young man for whom it
is intended. Afterward the shaman keeps the cotton in his house,
the affection having been transmitted by it.

On the other hand, men and women, to subdue their natural instincts,
go into the fields and grasp the branches of certain sensitive
plants. As the plant closes its leaves, the girls pray that they
may be able to shut themselves up in themselves. There are two kinds
of sensitive plants growing in the neighbourhood of Lajas (_Mimosa
florribunda_, var. _albida_, and _Mimosa invisa_), and recourse
may be had to either of them. Many men emigrate to other pueblos,
though they may in time return. Others remain bachelors all their
lives, and the judges in vain offer them wives. "Why should we take
them?" they say. "You have thrashed us once, and it is not possible
to endure it again." The legitimate way of contracting marriage is to
let the parents make the match. When the old folks have settled the
matter between themselves, they ask the judges to arrest the boy and
girl in question, whereupon the young people are put into prison for
three days. The final arrangements are made before the authorities,
and then the girl goes to the home of the boy to await the arrival
of the priest.

When the Señor Cura is expected in Lajas, all the couples thus united,
as well as all persons suspected of harbouring unsafe tendencies, are
arrested. On the priest's arrival, he finds most of the young people of
the place in prison, waiting for him to marry them. For each ceremony
the Indians have to pay $5, and from now on every married couple
has to pay $1.50 per year as subsidy for the priest. No marriage
in Lajas is contracted outside of the prison. Crescencio himself,
when about to marry a Tepehuane woman, barely escaped arrest. Only
by threatening to leave them did he avoid punishment; but his bride
had to submit to the custom of her tribe.

Contrary to what one might expect, unhappy unions are rare. Probably
the young people are glad to rest in the safe harbour of matrimony,
after experiencing how much the way in and out of it is beset with
indignities and leads through the prison gates. However, imprisonment
for love-making does not appear so absurd to the aboriginal mind as it
does to us, and the tribe has accommodated itself to it. I learned that
some of the boys and girls after a whipping go to their homes laughing.

The obligation to denounce young people whom one has found talking
together, under penalty of being punished one's self for the omission,
does not create the animosity that might be expected. Besides, the
law on this point is none too strictly obeyed or enforced.

According to Crescencio, the census taken in 1894 enumerated 900
souls belonging to Lajas, and there may probably be altogether 3,000
Tepehuanes here in the South. As far as I was able to ascertain,
the following Tepehuane pueblos are still in existence:

1. San Francisco de Lajas.

2. Tasquaringa, about fifteen leagues from the city of Durango. The
people here are little affected by civilisation, though a few Mexicans
live among them.

3. Santiago Teneraca, situated in a deep gorge. The inhabitants are
as non-communicative as at Lajas, and no Mexicans are allowed to
settle within their precinct. This, as well as the preceding village,
belongs to Mezquital, and the padre from there visits them.

4. Milpillas Chico, where the Indians are much mixed with Mexicans.

5. Milpillas Grande. Here the population is composed of Tepehuanes,
Aztecs, and Mexicans.

6. Santa Maria Ocotan, and

7. San Francisco, both little affected by civilisation.

8. Quiviquinta, about fifteen leagues southwest of Lajas.

The latter three villages belong to the State of Jalisco.

On the road from Durango to Mazatlan, passing Ventanas, there are no
Tepehuane pueblos.

Chapter XXVI

    Pueblo Viejo--Three Languages Spoken Here--The Aztecs--The
    Musical Bow--Theories of Its Origin--Dancing Mitote--Fasting
    and Abstinence--Helping President Diaz--The Importance of Tribal
    Restrictions--Principles of Monogamy--Disposition of the Dead.

There are two days journey over rough country to Pueblo Viejo, my next
objective point. Again I had great difficulty in finding a guide,
as the two villages were at loggerheads about some lands. The guide
furnished me by the authorities hid himself when we were about to
start. All the other Indians had gone back to their ranches, except
one, whom I finally persuaded to show me the way at least as far as
the ranch of the shaman with whom I had made friends, where I hoped
that through him I might get another guide. On our way, we passed Los
Retablos ("Pictures drawn on a Board"), the rather fantastic name of a
magnificent declivity of reddish rock, across which the track led. At
this place, tradition says, the Tepehuanes of Lajas, in the war of
independence, vanquished 300 Spanish soldiers, who were trying to reach
the city of Durango from Acaponeta. The Indians had hidden themselves
all around and above the steep slope, and from their ambuscades rolled
stones down on the Spaniards, every one of whom was killed.

Having gotten my mules safely over this dangerous track, where they
could never have been rescued if they had lost their footing, I arrived
after a while at the home of the shaman, near which I camped. When I
went up to the house, I found it empty, and was barely in time to see
a woman making her escape with a child as best she could. I realised
that if the shaman did not return that evening or early next day,
I should have to return to Lajas. The plaintive trumpet sound of a
giant woodpecker about sunset--as far as we could make out, the only
living being in the vicinity--did not detract from the gloominess of
the prospect.

Luckily, however, my shaman friend came to my tent at daybreak next
morning, and thus relieved my anxiety. Though exceedingly busy cutting
down trees and shrubs to clear his field, he spared one of his helpers
to show me the way to Hormigas (ants), charging only three reales for
the accommodation, and one real extra (twelve cents in Mexican money)
to be paid to the man in case I should want him to go farther and show
me the way to Aguacates. I also improved the opportunity to get from
him some ethnological information and a short Tepehuane vocabulary.

Thus with lightened heart I started off through a country that, while
it did not present any remarkably steep ascents and descents, was
very rough and hard to travel. The main sierra is here very narrow,
and the large mountainous mass broken up into irregular ridges and
steep valleys. The next day, much of the time we followed a high,
rocky ridge, the highest point of which is called Mojoneras. Here,
ten miles north of Pueblo Viejo, the boundary line of the territory of
Tepic is said to run. For several miles on the road, and particularly
from the last-mentioned ridge, magnificent views of the wild country
northward present themselves, over the steep descent into the cañons
and gorges of the western part of the Sierra Madre. Only three
Tepehuane ranches were observed.

I arrived without any mishap at Pueblo Viejo, which is inhabited
mainly by Aztecs. Of late years they have become much mixed with the
Tepehuanes, who have here taken refuge from drought and the advancing
"neighbours." Indian settlers who thus come from other pueblos are
called poblanos. They receive land from the community in return
for the services they render, and the two tribes freely intermarry,
although "neighbours" are never allowed to settle within the confines
of the village. Still the people, who have considerable intercourse
with Acaponeta, and who also go some distance to work in the mines
of Sinaloa, speak Spanish quite well. Indeed, of the three languages
spoken here, Spanish is the one most generally heard. Several Nahuatlan
words have been forgotten, and in making out my list of collections I
had great difficulty in getting designations for some of the objects,
for instance the word for "quiver," and for the curious rattling
anklets used by dancers. Only elderly people speak Nahuatl correctly,
and the Tepehuane influence is strong here, even in the ancient
religion of the people. It was curious to note that many people here,
as in Lajas, eat neither hens nor sheep, while they freely partake
of beef.

People here are more intelligent and much less reticent than in
Lajas. Women when addressed will answer you, while in Lajas the
inhabitants are guarded, and suspicious even of other Indians,
not to speak of "neighbours." Another difference is that very few
drink mescal.

At a meeting I had with the Indians, I remarked, in my desire to please
them, that the Mexican Government was interested to know whether
they were getting on well or whether they were coming to an end. To
this the principal speaker at once laughingly rejoined. "Of course,
they want to know how soon they can 'finish' us!"

The Indians here have the usual trouble from "neighbours" trying to
encroach upon their territory. Once a delegation from this and the
neighbouring pueblos undertook a journey to the City of Mexico in order
to settle the troubles about their land. They stopped eleven days in
the capital and were well received by the Ministerio del Fomento;
but their money gave out before they finished their business, and
they had to walk all the way back without having accomplished anything.

I found these Indians law-abiding and obliging, and I had no great
difficulty in securing permission to be present at a mitote, which
was to be given at a ranch in the neighbourhood. On March 24th,
a little before sunset, we started out on a ride of an hour and a
half, ascending some 3,000 feet on a winding Indian trail up to a high
mesa. It was a starlit, beautiful night, but the magnificent view which
this mesa commanded could only be surmised. There are a few ranches
here owned by people from the pueblo below, a man sometimes living in
his ranch here during the wet season, while for the remainder of the
year he occupies one in the pueblo. As we entered on the plain we could
distinctly hear the beating of the tawitól, the musical instrument
of the Tepehuanes. At this distance it sounded like a big drum.

We passed the ranch which was giving the mitote, and a hundred yards
farther on we came upon a picturesque scene. Here on a meadow the
Indians were grouped around the many fires whose lights flickered
among the trees. There was just a pause in the dancing, which had
begun soon after sunset. I could at once discern a little plain set
apart for the dancing. On its eastern side was an altar of the usual
description, fenced on two sides with felled trees, on which were hung
the paraphernalia of the dancers, their bows, quivers, etc. In the
centre of the dancing-place was a large fire, and to the west of it
the shaman was seated on a stool. Behind him, similar though smaller
stools were set for the owner of the ranch and the principal men.

Strange to say, the shaman was a Tepehuane. I learned later that the
Aztecs consider the shamans of that tribe better than their own. In
front of the shaman was the musical instrument on which he had been
playing. This was a large, round gourd, on top of which a bow of
unusual size was placed with its back down. The shaman's right foot
rested on a board which holds the bow in place on the gourd. The
bow being made taut, the shaman beats the string with two sticks,
in a short, rhythmical measure of one long and two short beats. When
heard near by, the sonorousness of the sound reminds one of the cello.

This is the musical bow of America, which is here met with for the
first time. It is intimately connected with the religious rites of
this tribe, as well as with those of the Coras and the Huichols,
the latter playing it with two arrows. The assertion has been made
that the musical bow is not indigenous to the Western Hemisphere,
but was introduced by African slaves. Without placing undue
importance on the fact that negroes are very rarely, if at all,
found in the north-western part of Mexico, it seems entirely beyond
the range of possibility that a foreign implement could have become
of such paramount importance in the religious system of several
tribes. Moreover, this opinion is confirmed by Mr. R. B. Dixon's
discovery, in 1900, of a musical bow among the Maidu Indians on the
western slope of the Sierra Nevada, northeast of San Francisco,
California. In the religion of that tribe also this bow plays an
important part, and much secrecy is connected with it.

The shaman's song sounded very different from the songs I had heard
among the Tarahumares. As his seat was high, he had to maintain a
stooping position all the time he played. The dancers, men and women,
made much noise by stamping their fiat soles vigorously on the ground,
as they moved in double column around the fire and the shaman, in a
kind of two-step-walk forward. They danced in a direction against the
apparent movement of the sun, the men leading, the women following. I
noticed that the step of the women was slightly different from that
of the men, inasmuch as they lifted themselves on their toes at each
step. At times the columns would suddenly stop and make the same
kind of movements backward for a little while, with the same small
jumps or skips as when walking forward. After a few seconds they
would again go forward. These movements are directed by the leader,
the man who dances first.

Both men and women wore flowers, the former fastening them to their
straw hats, the latter in their hair with the stem behind the ear. The
flowers were apparently selected according to individual taste, but
the kind I saw most frequently was a white blossom called _corpus_,
the delicious fragrance of which I noticed every time the women
danced by. Two boys had a peculiar kind of white flower fastened with
a handkerchief tied around their heads. It is called _clavillinos_,
and looks like thick, white hair. The shaman wore a narrow hair-ribbon,
but no flower. Around their ankles the men had wound strings of dried
empty pods of a certain palm, which made a rattling noise during the
dancing. Five times during the night, ears of corn and plumes were
brought from the altar, and then the men always removed their hats. The
women wore veils (_rebosos_), but it is considered improper for them
to use sandals on such occasions; these are worn only by the men.

There were five pauses made in the course of the night, and, to
prepare the people for them, the shaman each time began to strike
more slowly. The dancers continued until they arrived in front of the
altar, where they commenced to jump up and down on the same spot,
but with increasing rapidity, until the music stopped, when they
separated and lay down.

Those who did not take any part in the dancing were lying around the
various fires, the number of the dancers changing with the different
songs, according to the degree of enthusiasm among the people. Many
went to sleep for a while, but this is not deemed very polite to the
owner of the ranch, as the effect of the dancing is much greater upon
the gods when everybody takes part. I was told that to keep the people
awake a man sometimes goes around spurting cold water over the drowsy
and nodding heads.

The function had been opened by the owner of the ranch making alone
five circuits around the fire, carrying the musical instrument
and the two playing-sticks and doing reverence to the sun every
time he passed the altar. Just before sunrise the mitote concluded
with the dramatisation of the killing of the deer. Deer-skins were
brought from the bower of the altar, and the men put on their bows
and quivers, each of which contained twenty-five arrows and had two
slings attached to it. The men held the deer-skins in their hands and
danced five circuits. Two light-footed boys next appeared on the scene
to play the part of the deer. They had deer-skins on their backs,
and in their hands held deer-heads with antlers. These they showed
five times, alternately to the shaman who furnished the music, and
to the altar. Then they began to run, followed by the dancers, who
shouted and shot arrows, also trying to catch the deer by throwing
lassos that had been kept in the bower. Often they had to flee from
the deer, who chased them off the dancing-place. But they returned,
and at sunrise the deer were captured on a matting spread before the
altar, where the dancers now took positions. Starting from here they
next made five circuits around the dancing-place in the direction of
the apparent movement of the sun, then five circuits in the opposite
way. The shaman's beating slowed down, once more all the dancers
jumped up quickly, the music stopped, and the dancing was finished.

Now the feasting began. The food, that had been placed on the altar,
pinole and toasted corn, was brought forward, and the host and his
wife ate first. After they had thus broken fast, all sat down, and
to each one the following dishes were served on little earthenware
platters or bowls: A small slice of deer-meat that had been cooked
between hot stones in an earth mound, and a handful of toasted corn;
a ball made of pinole mixed with unbroken beans; four tamales, and
one ball of deer-meat and ground corn boiled together. The last-named
course is simply called chueena (deer). The boys who served it had
on their backs three bun-dies, each containing three tamales, which
the boys afterward ate.

The host always asks his guests to submit for four days longer to
the restrictions that are necessary to insure the efficiency of the
dancing. These refer mainly to abstinence from mescal and women,
and are conscientiously observed for five days before and five days
after the occasion, by the family who arranges the dance. The shaman,
on whom the obligation to observe these formalities is greater than
on anyone else, may have to officiate at another mitote before the
time limit for the first has expired, therefore much of his time is
spent in privations.

After the feast, the tapexte, that is to say, the matting, which
constituted the top of the altar, is hung up in a tree to be used
again the next year. The trees that have formed the bower near the
altar are left undisturbed. The ceremonial objects are placed in
the trees for four or five days, and then put into a basket which is
hung in some cave. At Pueblo Viejo no more tribal mitotes are given,
and it seems that no family anywhere makes more than one a year.

When a newly married couple wish to give their first mitote, they
go away from the house for a month. Both of them bathe and wash
their clothes, and impose restrictions upon themselves, sleeping
most of the time. When awake they talk little to each other, and
think constantly of the gods. Only the most necessary work is done;
he brings wood and she prepares the food, consisting of tortillas,
which must not be toasted so long that they lose their white colour. A
thin white gruel, called atole, made from ground corn, is also eaten,
but no deer-meat, nor fish with the exception of a small kind called
mítshe. Neither salt nor beans are allowed. The blankets they wear
must also be white. During all this time they must not cut flowers or
bathe or smoke; they must not get angry at each other, and at night
they must sleep on different sides of the fire.

Fasting and abstinence form an integral part of the religion of these
people. A man who desires to become a shaman must keep strictly to
a diet of white tortillas and atole for five years. His drink is
water, and that only once a day, in the afternoon. The people here
once fasted for two months, in order to aid General Porfirio Diaz
to become President of Mexico; and they told me that they were soon
going to subject themselves to similar privations in order to help
another official whom they wanted to remain in his position.

Fasting also plays an important part in the curing of diseases. The
patient, with his doctor, may go out and live in the woods and fast
for many days, the shaman smoking tobacco all the time. An omen as
to whether the patient will live or die is taken from the colour of
the tobacco smoke. If it is yellow the omen is bad. Or if the smoke
remains dense the patient will live; but if it disperses he will die.

A very interesting ceremony is performed over a child when it is one
year old. The parents go with the shaman into the field and fast for
five days before the anniversary and for five days afterward. An
hour or two after sunset a big fire is made and four arrows and
the ceremonial object called god's eye are placed east of it. The
parents and those present look east all the time. The shaman first
makes four ceremonial circuits, then puffs tobacco-smoke on the god's
eye and on the child. He sings incantations and again makes four
ceremonial circuits, and smokes as before. Next he places his mouth
to the child's forehead, and draws out something that is called the
cochiste, the sleep or dreams, spitting it out in his hand. He makes
a motion with his plumes as if he lifted something up with them from
his hand, and holds the plumes over the god's eye for a while. The
people now see that two small, white balls are attached to the plumes,
and he shows them to all present, to prove that he does not deceive
them. Then he crushes the balls in his left hand with a sound as
if an egg was cracked, and throws them away. In the morning salt is
offered to the rasters.

The cochiste is taken away from boys twice and four times from girls. A
boy cannot get married until the cochiste is taken away. A girl at the
age of puberty is pledged to a year of chastity, and the same ceremony
is performed on her as in babyhood, to be repeated in the following
year. Should she transgress during that time the belief is that she
or her parents or her lover will die. The principle of monogamy is
strictly enforced, and if a woman deviates from it she has to be cured
by the shaman, or an accident will befall her--a jaguar or a snake
will bite her, or lightning strike her, or a scorpion sting her, etc.

She gives the shaman a wad of white cotton, which he places on
the god's eye. When he smokes tobacco and talks to the god's eye,
information is given to him through the cotton, which reveals to
him whether she has more than one husband, and even the name of the
unlawful one. He admonishes her to confess, explaining to her how much
better the result will be, as he then can cure her with much greater
strength. Even if she confesses, she is only half through with her
trouble, because the shaman exacts heavy payment for the cure, from
$10 to $20. If she cannot pay now, she has to come back in a month,
and continue coming until she can settle her account. By rights, the
man should pay for her, but often he runs away and leaves her in the
lurch. Since the Indians have come in contact with the Mexicans this
happens quite often. When at length the money is paid and she has
confessed everything, there is nothing more for the shaman to do but
to give an account of it to the god's eye, and she goes to her home
absolved. One year afterward she has to come back and report, and,
should she in the meantime have made another slip, she has to pay
more. From all the cotton wads the shaman gets he may have girdles
and hair-ribbons made, which he eventually sells.

The custom related above is of interest as showing the forces employed
by ancient society to maintain the family intact. Fear of accidents,
illness or death, more even than the fine or anything else, keeps
the people from yielding too freely to the impulses of their senses.

The treatment accorded to the dead by these people, and their notions
regarding them, are, in the main, the same as those obtaining with the
tribes which I visited before them, but there are some new features
that are of interest. Here, for instance, near the head of the dead,
who lies stretched out on the ground in the house, the shaman places
a god's eye and three arrows; and at his feet another arrow. He sings
an incantation and smokes tobacco, though not on the dead, while the
widow makes yarn from some cotton, which she has first handed to the
shaman. When she has finished the yarn, she gives it to the shaman,
who tears it into two pieces of equal length, which he ties to the
arrow standing at the right-hand side of the man. One piece he rubs
over with charcoal; this is for the dead, and is tied lower down on
the arrow. He winds it in a ball, except the length which reaches from
the arrow to the middle of the body, where the ball is placed under
the dead man's clothes. The other thread the shaman holds in his left
hand, together with his pipe and plumes. After due incantations he
divides the white thread into pieces of equal length, as many as there
are members of the family, and gives one piece to each. They tie them
around their necks and wear them for one year. Afterward they are mixed
with Some other material and from them a ribbon or girdle is made.

On the fifth day the dead is despatched from this world. In the
small hours of the morning the shaman, with his plumes and pipe,
and a jar of water into which some medicinal herbs have been thrown,
leads the procession toward the west, while the people, including
women and children, carry branches of the zapote-tree. They stop,
while it is still dark, and the shaman steps forward and despatches
the deceased. He returns very soon, and sprinkles water on the people
and toward the west, where the dead has gone.

Chapter XXVII

    Inexperienced Help--How to Acquire Riches from the
    Mountains--Sierra del Nayarit--The Coras--Their Aversion to
    "Papers"--Their Part in Mexican Politics--A Déjeuner à la
    Fourchette--La Danza.

It is practically impossible to travel from tribe to tribe in Mexico
without changing muleteers, not only because the men generally
object to going so far from their homes, but also because it is not
advantageous to employ men who do not know the country through which
they are passing. Whenever the Indians understood something about
packing mules, I preferred them to the Mexicans, because I could learn
much from them on the way. The latter part of my travels I employed
none but Indians.

The unwillingness of desirable men to leave their homes makes a
frequent change very embarrassing. My next destination from Pueblo
Viejo was Santa Teresa, the most northern of the Cora pueblos, and
everybody thought it was too far away. I had finally to take whatever
I could get in the way of carriers. For instance, I had only one man
on whom I could depend, a civilised Tepehuane, who was bright and
knew his business well, but he was hampered by an injured arm. Then
I obtained another man, somewhat elderly. He, too, became suddenly
aware that his right arm was crooked and not strong enough to lift
heavy burdens, while the two remaining carriers had never loaded a
mule in their lives.  The first two directed the other pair how to
proceed, and thus I was treated to the ludicrous spectacle of four
men engaged in packing one mule. Naturally it took all day to load my
ten animals, and when this was accomplished, it was too late to start,
so that the day's work turned out to be nothing but a dress-rehearsal
in the noble art of packing mules. The result was that I had to take
a hand myself in putting the aparejos on the animals, shoeing them
and curing the sore backs, which, as a matter of course, developed
from the inexperience of some of the men.

On the second day, by a stupendous effort, we started, but could go
only eight miles to a beautiful llano surrounded by oaks and pines. A
few ranches are all that remains of the village that once existed
here. On one of them lived a rich Cora who had married a Tepehuane
woman. All Coras get rich, the Indians here assert, because they know
better how to appease the gods. They submit to fasting and restrictions
for a month, or even a year, and then go "to the richest mountain the
ancient people knew." The master of the mountain comes out and the
two make a bargain, the Cora agreeing to pay for the cattle, deer,
corn, and other possessions, with men that he kills. The belief that
the mountains are the masters of all riches--of money, cattle, mules,
sheep, and shepherds--is common among the tribes of the Sierra Madre.

When it devolves upon a Cora to make good his agreement and kill a man,
he makes from burnt clay, strips of cloth, etc., a small figure of
the victim and then with incantations puts thorns through the head
or stomach, to make the original suffer. He may even represent the
victim on horseback, and place the figure upside down to give him
pain. Sometimes a Cora makes a figure of the animal he wants, forming
it of wax or burned clay, or carving it from tuff, and deposits it
in a cave in the mountain. For every cow, deer, dog, or hen wanted,
he has to sacrifice a corresponding figure.

The next day we followed for some time the camino real, which leads
from Acaponeta to the towns of Mezquital and Durango. We then descended
without difficulty some 3,000 feet into the cañon of Civacora, through
which flows a river of the same name, said to originate in the State
of Zacatecas. It passes near the cities of Durango and Sombrerete,
this side of Cerro Gordo. In this valley, which runs in a northerly
and southerly direction, we found some Tepehuanes from the pueblo of
San Francisco.

The Indians here were defiant and disagreeable, and would not even
give us any information about the track we were to follow. They had the
reputation of stealing mules and killing travellers for the sake of the
corn the latter are likely to carry. I therefore put two men on guard
and allowed them to fire off a rifle shot as a warning, something they
always like to do. The sound reverberated through the still night with
enough force to frighten a whole army of robbers. The next morning I
sent for the most important Tepehuane, told him the object of my visit,
and asked him about the track. He gave me what information he could,
but he was unable to procure a guide for a longer time than that
day. We were then left to ourselves, with the odds against us. Twice
we lost our way, the first time passing a mitote dancing-place, and
coming to a halt before a steep mountain wall, passable only for agile
Indians. The second time we landed at the edge of a deep barranca,
and there was nothing to do but to turn back to a ranch we had passed
some time before. Luckily we met there a Tepehuane and his wife,
who assured us that we were at last on the right track. However, we
did not advance farther than the confluence of two arroyos, which the
man had pointed out to us deep down in the shrubbery. Before leaving
us he promised to be at our camp in the morning to show us the road
to Las Botijas, a small aggregation of ranches at the summit. In a
straight line we had not gone that day more than three miles.

When passing one of our guide's ranches--and he had three within
sight--I noticed near the track a small jacal about 100 yards
off. The man told me that he was a shaman and that here he kept his
musical outfit, ceremonial arrows, etc.; though he appeared to be an
open-hearted young man, I could not induce him to show me this private
chapel of his, and we had to go on. He parted from us on the summit,
but described the road so well that we encountered no difficulty
during the remaining two days of our journey.

I was glad to be once more up on the highlands, the more so that we
succeeded in finding there arroyos with water and grass. On reaching
the top of the cordon we had been following, we came upon a camino
real running between the villages of San Francisco and Santa Teresa,
and now we were in the Sierra del Nayarit. I was rather surprised
to find another barranca close by, parallel with the one we had just
left. As far as I could make out, this new gorge begins near the pueblo
of Santa Maria Ocotan, high up in the Sierra; at least my old Mexican
informed me that the river which waters it rises at that place and
passes the Cora pueblos of Guasamota and Jesus Maria. We travelled
along the western edge of this barranca, within which there are some
Aztec, but mainly Cora villages. There is still another barranca to
the east of and parallel to this, and in this the Huichols live.

What is called Sierra del Nayarit is in the beginning a rather level
and often narrow cordon, and the track south leads near the edge of
the Barranca de Jesus Maria for ten or twelve miles. Along this ridge
hardly any other kind of tree is to be seen than _Pinus Lumholtzii_. A
variety of pine which resembles this very much, but is much larger,
and which I think may also be a new species, was observed after
leaving Pueblo Nuevo.

The cordon gradually widens, and open, grass-covered places appear
among the pines, which now are of the usual kinds, and throughout
the Sierra del Nayarit are high, but never large. A few Coras passed
us leading mules loaded with panoche, to be exchanged in Santa Maria
Ocotan for mescal.

The most conspicuous things in the Cora's travelling outfit are
his rifle and one or two home-made pouches which he slings over his
shoulder. There is an air of manliness and independence about these
Indians, and this first impression is confirmed by the entire history
of the tribe.

We passed a few ranches on the road, and at last reached the little
llano on which Santa Teresa is situated. It is always disagreeable to
approach a strange Indian pueblo, where you have to make your camp,
knowing how little the people like to see you, and here I was among
a tribe who had never heard of me, and who looked upon me with much
suspicion as I made my entry.

There were many people in town preparing for the Easter festival,
practising their parts in certain entertainments in vogue at that
season. At last I met a man willing to show me where I could find
water. He led me outside of the village to some deep and narrow clefts
in the red earth, from which a rivulet was issuing. I selected my
camping-place near by, at the foot of some low pine-covered hills,
and then returned to the pueblo.

"Amigo!" shouted a man as he came running toward me from his house. It
was the alcalde, a tall, slender Indian with a slight beard and
a very sympathetic voice. I told him that we were entirely out of
corn, to which he replied that we could not get any in the pueblo,
only on the ranches in the neighbourhood. I asked him if he wanted
us to die from starvation, and then another man offered me half a
fanega. I inquired of the judge whether he did not want to see my
papers. "We do not understand papers," he replied. Still it was agreed
that the Indians should meet me next morning, and that my chief man,
the Tepehuane, should read my letters from the Government, because
the preceptor of the village was away in the city of Tepic, and no
one else was able to read.

Santa Teresa is called in Cora Quemalúsi, after the principal one
of the five mythical men who in ancient times lived in the Sierra
del Nayarit. Reports say an idol now hidden was once found here. A
few miles east of Santa Teresa is a deep volcanic lake, the only
remnant of the large flood, the Coras say. It is called "Mother," or
"Brother," the last name containing a reference to their great god,
the Morning Star, Chulavéte. There are no fish in it, but turtles and
ducks. The water is believed to cure the sick and strengthen the well,
and there is no ceremony, in the Cora religion for which this water
is not required. It is not necessary to use it pure; it is generally
mixed with ordinary spring water, and in this way sprinkled over the
people with a red orchid, or a deer-tail stretched over a stick.

Early next morning a good-looking young Indian on horseback rode up
to the tent to pay me a visit. He spoke Spanish very well. I treated
him with consideration and proffered him some biscuits I happened to
have. In the course of the conversation he offered to sell me a fowl,
if I would send a man to his ranch for it, which of course I was glad
to do.

As he was taking leave, I expressed my admiration for the handsome
native-made halter on his horse. "Do you like it?" he asked, and he
immediately removed it from the horse and presented it to me. I wanted
to pay for it, but he said, "We are friends now," and rode off. The
fowl he sent was the biggest he had in his yard, an old rooster,
very strong and tough, Could there be food less palatable than a
lean old rooster of Indian breeding? The broth is worse than that
made from a billy-goat.

I went to the meeting, and all listened silently while my letters
from the Government were read. Anything coming from Mexico impresses
these people deeply. Yet with the suspicion innate in their nature,
the Indians could not hear the documents read over often enough. We
had meeting after meeting, as the arrival in the pueblo of every man
of any importance was a signal that my papers would have to be read
over again.

The alcalde introduced me to the teacher's wife, a Mexican, who
apparently took her lot very contentedly among "these people whom
no one ever knows," as she expressed it. She liked the climate, and
the security of life and property. Her husband had been working here
for four years. The children, of course, have first to learn Spanish,
and there is no school from June till September. The youngsters seemed
bright and well-behaved, but the Coras told me that they had not yet
learned to read.

Most of the Cora Indians are slightly bearded, especially on the
chin. In this respect, however, there was no uniformity, some being
absolutely beardless, while others looked rather Mexican. They all
insisted, nevertheless, that there is among them no intermixture
with Mexicans, or, for that matter, with the Tepehuanes, and the Cora
women have very strong objections to unions with "neighbours." On the
other hand, it should be remembered that during the latter half of the
last century the tribe was subjected to a great deal of disturbance,
incidental to the revolution of Manuel Lozada, a civilised Aztec
from the neighbourhood of Tepic, who, about the time of the French
intervention, established an independent State comprising the present
territory of Tepic and the Cora country. He had great military talent,
and it was said that whenever he liked he could gather thousands of
soldiers without cost. He was able to maintain his government for a
number of years, thanks chiefly to the Coras, who were his principal
supporters. At one time they had to leave their country, and to live
for five years in an inaccessible part of the Sierra Madre above
San Buena.

Among themselves, the Coras use their own language, but all the
men and most of the women speak and understand Spanish to some
extent. Though the people now dress like the "neighbours," they
are still thoroughly Indian, and proud of it. There are about 2,500
pure-bred among them. They call themselves Nayariti or Nayari, and in
speech, religion, and customs they are akin to the Huichol Indians,
who, however, do not care very much for their relatives, whom they
call Hashi (crocodiles). Yet some intercourse is maintained between
the two tribes, the Coras bringing to the Huichols red face-paint,
wax, and the tail-feathers of the bluejay, while the services of
the Huichol curing shamans are highly appreciated by the Coras. An
interesting home industry is the weaving of bags or pouches of cotton
and wool, in many beautiful designs.

The Coras are not good runners; they have neither speed nor endurance,
and they run heavily. It is astonishing how small the bones of their
limbs are, especially among the females, though this, by the way, is
the case with all the Indians I have visited. A Cora woman made for
me a shirt as an ethnological specimen, which I thought she must have
made too small at the wrist-bands, as they measured about 4 3/4 inches
(barely twelve centimetres); but she showed me how well they fitted
her. Still they always have well-developed hips and better figures
than the Mexican women. The teeth of the Coras are not always perfect;
I have seen several individuals whose front teeth were missing.

Strange to say, in spite of the high elevation, there is fever and
ague here; the alcalde told me that he had an attack every second day.

As Easter was at hand, there was quite a concourse of people, nearly
300 Indians assembling. Oxen were killed, and general eating and
feasting went on. I attended the communal feast, and dishes of food
were brought to me. In accordance with the Indian custom not to eat
much on the spot, I had my men carry some of the food to the camp,
as a welcome addition to our monotonous diet and scanty stores; and
we found that, aside from the usual Indian dishes, they comprised
bananas, salted fish, honey, and squashes.

The authorities newly elected for the ensuing year gave a similar
entertainment to their predecessors in office. At the home of the
"Centurion," the principal official of the Easter festival, a rustic
table and benches had been erected outside of the house. I was invited
to sit down among the men of quality, and it was phenomenal to be
present at an Indian banquet served on a table, the only occasion of
the kind in my experience. As the table was small, the diners were
served in turns, one set after another. Each guest had a man to wait on
him, but there was neither table-cloth nor knife, fork nor spoon. It
was, if you like, a _déjeuner à la fourchette_, except that you were
supposed to handle the solid food with pieces of tortilla, that were
broken off, folded over, and used as a fork, or rather, spoon, and
were eaten with the meat. After the meat had all been fished out,
you drank the soup from your bowl or plate. If you could not manage
with the tortilla, you were excused for using your fingers. When
a bowl or plate was set before an Indian guest, the latter took it
up and immediately handed it to his wife, standing behind him, who
emptied it into the jars she had brought for that purpose. There was
meat with its broth; meat ground on the metate, boiled, and mixed with
chile; and atole to drink with it, all fresh and excellent. As I was
hungry, I pitched in, although at first I was the only one who ate,
which was rather embarrassing. But by and by the others, too, began
to eat, perhaps out of politeness. They were pleased, however, that
I enjoyed their food, and I did enjoy it, after the poorly assorted
diet we had been obliged to maintain. Although the variety of dishes
of primitive man is exceedingly limited, such of them as they have are
well prepared. The dinner was the best I ever had among Indians. The
party was pleasant and animated, and the banquet-hall extended to
the pines and mountains around and the azure sky above.

During the night there was dancing on the tarima, a broad plank resting
on stumps. Dancing on the plank is said to be customary throughout
the Tierra Caliente of the northwest. One man and one woman dance
simultaneously, facing though not touching each other. The dancing
consists in a rhythmical jumping up and down on the same spot, and is
known to all the so-called Christian Indians wherever the violin is
played, although nowhere but among the Coras have I seen it executed
on the plank. It is called _la danza_, and is distinct from the
aboriginal sacred dances, although it may have been a native dance
somewhere in Mexico. _La danza_ is merely a ventilation of merriment,
indulged in when the Indians are in high spirits after church feasts,
and may sometimes be executed even in church.

Gradually the people submitted to being photographed, even the
women. One evening when I changed plates under two wagon-covers in an
old empty house, a curious crowd gathered outside and knocked at the
door, wanting to know what was going on and to see the secret rites
I was performing.

After a few days of deliberation the Indians consented to show me
their dancing-place, or, as they expressed it, their tunamóti (the
musical bow).

Chapter XXVIII

    A Glimpse of the Pacific from the High Sierra--A Visionary
    Idyl--The Coras Do Not Know Fear--An Un-Indian Indian--Pueblo of
    Jesus Maria--A Nice Old Cora Shaman--A Padre Denounces Me as a
    Protestant Missionary--Trouble Ensuing from His Mistake--Scorpions.

After a fortnight's stay I said good-bye to Santa Teresa. The alcalde,
who had become quite friendly, accompanied me over the llano on
which his pueblo lies, extending, interspersed with pine forests,
for about three miles west. He begged me not to forget the Coras
when I came to the Governor of the Territory of Tepic, and to ask
the Mexican Government to let them keep their old customs, which
he had heard they were going to prohibit. This fear, I think, was
unfounded. He also wanted me to use my influence toward preventing
the whites from settling in the vicinity, since they were eager to
get at the big forests.

I had found a friend in a Cora called Nuberto, a kind-hearted and
frank fellow, sixty years old, who became our guide. The trail leads
along the western side of the Sierra Madre, sometimes only a few yards
from where the mountains suddenly give way to the deep and low-lying
valleys and foot-hills. As we approached the end of the day's journey,
a perfectly open view presented itself of the Tierra Caliente below,
as far as the Pacific Ocean, which by mules is a week's journey
distant. The wide expanse before us unfolded a panorama of hills that
sank lower and lower toward the west, where the salt lagoons of the
coast could be clearly discerned as silver streaks in the reddish-grey
mist of the evening. Acaponeta was right in line with the setting
sun. Here, 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, everything was calm
and mild; not a breath of air was stirring. A _prunus_ was in flower,
and oak-trees were growing on the brink of the ridge toward the sea. In
every other direction were to be seen the immense silent pine forests
that shelter the Coras, but no trace of human life. Everything seemed
undisturbed, peaceful, quieting, nerve-resting.

Would it not be delightful to settle down here! Life would be so
easy! The Indians would help me to make a hut. I would marry one of
those beautiful Cora girls, who would be sure to have a cow or two to
supply me the civilised drink of milk. None of the strife and turmoil
of the outer world could penetrate into my retreat. One day would
pass as peacefully as its predecessor; never would she disturb the
tranquillity of my life, for she is like the lagoon, without ever a
ripple on its surface. Once in a while the spirit of the feasts might
inspire her to utter an angry word, but she would not mean much by
it, and would soon resume her usual placid rôle, moving along in the
even tenor of her daily life. What a splendid chance for studying the
people, for knowing them thoroughly, and for familiarising myself with
all their ancient beliefs and thoughts! Perhaps I might solve some
of the mysteries that shroud the workings of the human mind. But--I
should have to buy my fame at the price of living on tortillas and
pinole and beans!

    "We may live without poetry, music, and art;
    We may live without conscience and live without heart;
    We may live without friends, we may live without books,
    But civilised man cannot live without cooks."

Concluding that the eminent authority cited was right, I came back
to realities and continued my journey.

By and by I arrived at a fertile little slope partly covered with corn
stubble. At the farther end of it was a large Cora ranch called La
Cienega, and in front of it grew two or three magnificent oak-trees
with light-green stems and equally light-coloured leaves. The people
here were well disposed and sold me some necessary supplies, so I
stopped with them for a day.

While descending to the famous pueblo Mesa del Nayarit, one gets a
magnificent view of the high mountains which form the western border
of the Huichol country and stretch themselves out on the opposite
side of the cañon of Jesus Maria like a towering wall of a hazy
blue colour. The pueblo lies on a plain less than a mile in extent
in either direction, on the slope of the sierra, with an open view
only toward the east. There is an idol of the setting sun standing on
the mesa above the village, "looking toward Mexico," as the Indians
express it. This mesa is the one called Tonati by the chroniclers,
while by the Coras it is called Nayariti, and the whole sierra derived
its name from it. The same name is given to a cave in that locality,
where the Coras, as well as the Huichols, deposit ceremonial objects
and other offerings. The setting-sun god is worshipped equally by the
two tribes. The Indians jealously guard this cave, which is never
shown to outsiders. This is practically the terminus of the Sierra
del Nayarit. The sierra from now on is lower and gradually falls down
to Rio de Alica, or Rio Grande de Santiago, where Sierra Madre del
Norte ends.

The people here, though friendly, were less sympathetic and much
more reserved than those of Santa Teresa, and I could find no one
who would divulge tribal secrets. They had received a message from
their sister pueblo telling them they had nothing to fear from me,
but the Coras are not easily scared, anyhow. A stranger may enter
a house without any further ceremony than the customary salutation,
"Axú!" One day when I approached a dwelling, a nice-looking little
girl, scarcely three years of age, came running out with a big knife
in her little fist, her mother following after her to catch her. The
small children curiously approach you, rather than run away. My two
dogs intruded into a house and met in the doorway a little girl,
about four years old, who was just coming out. The family dog was
inside and began at once to bark at the new-comers, ready to fight,
but the little one continued her walk without in the least changing
the quiet expression of her face.

Although the Coras here maintain their traditions and customs more
completely than in other places, I did not see any of the adults
wearing the national dress, buckskin trousers and a very short tunic
reaching only below the breast and made of home-woven woollen material
dyed with native indigo-blue. Only one of the boys was seen with this
costume, and his father was said to have it also. Yet the Coras do
not want to be confounded with the "neighbours." When the principal
men submitted to be photographed, I wanted a picture to show their
physique, and therefore asked them to take off their shirts, which
they refused to do. But when I remarked, "You will then look like
neighbours," the shirts came off like a flash.

The gobernador here was an original and peculiar character. First he
wanted me to camp in La Comunidad, to which I objected; but he was
bent upon having me as closely under his supervision as possible,
and I had to agree to establish my camp only half the distance that
I had intended from the village. As soon as my tent had been put up,
he came, accompanied by one of his friends. He had a passion for
talking, which he indulged in for two hours, interrupting himself
about every twenty seconds to spit. His companion wrapped himself in
his blanket and began to nod, and whenever the gobernador stopped
for expectoration, the other one would utter an assenting "hay"
("yes"). The Cora language is guttural, but quite musical, and when
I heard it at a distance it reminded me in its cadence of one of the
dialects of central Norway. However, the gobernador's monologue soon
became very tiresome, and finally I made my bed and lay down. After
a while they retired, but every evening as long as I stayed in the
place, his Honour came to bore me with his talk. I generally took
him out to my men, who entertained him as long as they were able
to keep awake. He wanted to hear about other countries, about the
bears we had met, and the great war, because he thought there must
always be war somewhere. When everybody was asleep after midnight,
he would retire. He was a widower, and he was the most un-Indian
Indian I ever met.

About five miles east of Mesa del Nayarit the descent toward the
pueblo of Jesus Maria begins. The valley appears broad and hilly,
and the vegetation assumes the aspect of the Hot Country. Specially
noticeable were the usual thickets of thorny, dry, and scraggy trees,
seen even on the edge of the mesa. They are called _guisachi_,
and in the vernacular of the common man the word has been utilised
to designate a sharper. A man who "hooks on," as, for instance, a
tricky lawyer, is called a _guisachero_. It is the counterpart of the
"lawyer palm" among the shrubs of tropical Australia.

Jesus Maria looks at a distance quite a town, on a little plain above
the river-bank. A fine, grand-looking old church, in Moorish style, a
large churchyard surrounding it, and the usual big buildings connected
with the churches of Spanish times, make all extraordinary impression
among the pithaya-covered hills. The rest of the houses look humble
enough. I went a little beyond the pueblo to the junction of arroyo
Fraile with the river of Jesus Maria. As a violent wind, caused by the
cooling off of the hot air of the barranca, blows every afternoon,
I did not put up my tent, but had my men build an open shed. The
wind lasts until midnight, and the mornings are delightfully calm
and cool. The Coras consider this wind beneficial to the growth of
the corn, and sacrifice a tamal of ashes, two feet long, to keep it
in the valley.

The Cora of the cañon, and probably of the entire Tierra Caliente,
is of a milder disposition than his brother of the sierra, but he
looks after his own advantage as closely as the rest of them.

The houses of the village are built of stone with thatched roofs,
and, having no means of ventilation, become dreadfully overheated. I
frequently noticed people lying on the floor in these hovels, suffering
from colds. In the summer there is also prevalent in the valley a
disease of the eyes which makes them red and swollen. Although the
country is malarial, the Indians attain to remarkable longevity,
and their women are wonderfully well preserved. All Indian women
age very late in life, a trait many of their white sisters might be
pardonably envious of.

There are twenty Mexicans living here, counting the children; they
are poor, and have no house or lands of their own, but live in the
Convento and rent lands from the Indians. The Coras, of course,
are all nominally Christians, and the padre from San Juan Peyotan
attends to their religious needs. I was told that as recently as forty
years ago they had to be driven to church with scourges. Some families
still put their dead away in caves difficult of access, closing up the
entrance, without interring the bodies, and they still dance mitote,
although more or less secretly.

The Indians catch crayfish, and other small fish, with a kind of
hand-net of cotton thread, which they hold wide open with their elbows
while crawling in the water between the stones. Where the river is
deep they will even dive with the net held in this way.

The day after my arrival I was requested to come to. La Comunidad,
that the people might hear my letters read. This over, I explained
that I wanted them to sell me some corn and beans, a blue tunic of
native make, and other objects of interest to me, that I also wanted
them to furnish me two reliable men to go to the city of Tepic for
mail and money; that I wished to photograph them and to be shown
their burial-caves, and to have a real, good old shaman visit me,
and some men to interpret. The messengers were duly appointed, but it
took them two days to prepare the tortillas they had to take along as
provisions. My desire to see the burial-caves was looked upon with
ill-favour. The old shaman, however, was promptly sent for. He soon
arrived at the council-house, and without having seen me he told the
Indian authorities that "it was all right to tell this man about their
ancient beliefs, that the Government might know everything." When he
came to see me he took my hand to kiss, as if I were a padre, and I
had a most interesting interview with the truthful, dear old man, who
told me much about the Cora myths, traditions, and history. I gathered
from what he said that he could not be far from a hundred years old,
and he had not a grey hair in his head. His faculties were intact,
except his hearing, and while I was interviewing him he was making
a fish-net.

I had him with me one day and a part of the next, but by that time
he was a good deal fatigued mentally, and I had to let him go.

There was an Indian here, Canuto, who could read and write, and,
as he took a great interest in church affairs, he acted as a kind of
padre. I was told that he ascended the pulpit and delivered sermons
in Cora, and that he aspired even to bless water, but this the padre
had forbidden him. He was very suspicious and intolerant and quite
an ardent Catholic, the first Indian I had met who had entirely
relinquished his native belief. He actually did not like mitote
dancing, and the other Indians did not take kindly to him. All the
time I was here he worked against me, because the priest of San Juan
Peyotan, as I learned, had denounced me before the people.

Two traders from that town, who had been visiting Santa Teresa while
I was there, had reported to the padre the presence of a mysterious
gringo (American), who had a fine outfit of boxes and pack-mules,
and who gave the Coras "precious jewellery" to buy their souls,
and visited their dances. The padre, without having ever seen me,
concluded that I was a travelling Protestant missionary, and one
day after mass he warned the people against the bad Protestant who
was on his way to corrupt their hearts and to disturb this valley in
which there had always been peace. "Do not accept anything from him,
not even his money; do not allow him to enter the church, and do not
give him anything, not even a glass of water," he said. This padre,
so I was told by reliable authority, made the judges at San Juan and
at San Lucas punish men and women for offences that did not come under
their jurisdiction. The men were put into prison, while the women had
fastened to their ankles a heavy round board, which they had to drag
wherever they went for a week or two. It caused them great difficulty
in walking, and they could not kneel down at the metate with it.

His speeches about me made a deep impression upon the illiterate
Mexicans in that remote part of the world, who in consequence of it
looked upon me with suspicion and shunned me. Not knowing anything
better, they invented all kinds of wild charges against me: I was
surveying the lands for Porfirio Diaz, who wanted to sell the Cora
country to the Americans; I appealed only to the Indians because
they were more confiding and could be more easily led astray, my
alleged aim being to make Freemasons out of them. A Freemason is
the one thing of which these people have a superstitious dread and
horror. Even my letters of recommendation were doubted and considered
spurious. However, one old man, whose wife I had cured, told me that
Protestants are also Christians, and in his opinion I was even better
than a Protestant. Fortunately, the Indians were less impressionable,
and as their brethren in the sierra had not reported to them anything
bad about me, they could see no harm in a man who did not cheat anyone
and took an interest in their ancient customs and beliefs, while the
padres had always made short work of their sacred ceremonial things,
breaking and burning them.

When at last my messengers returned, after an absence of twelve days, I
was surprised to note that they were accompanied by two gendarmes. The
Commandant-General of the Territory of Tepic had not only been kind
enough to cash my check for about $200, but had deemed it wise to
send me the money under the protection of an escort, a precaution
which I duly appreciated. As the return of the men was the only thing
I had been waiting for, I now prepared to move up the river to the
near-by pueblo of San Francisco, where the population is freer from
Mexican influence.

When my hut was broken up, I found among my effects ten scorpions. The
cañon is noted for its multitude of scorpions, and I was told that a
piece of land above San Juan Peyotan had to be abandoned on account
of these creatures. The scorpion's sting is the most common complaint
hereabout, and children frequently die from it, though not all kinds
of scorpions are dangerous. The consensus of opinion is that the
small whitish-yellow variety is the one most to be dreaded. The Cura
of Santa Magdalena, State of Jalisco, assured me that he had known
the sting of such scorpions to cause the death of full-grown people
within two hours.

The scorpions of Mexico seem to have an unaccountable preference for
certain localities, where they may be found in great numbers. In
the city of Durango the hotels advertise, as an attraction, that
there are no scorpions ill them. For a number of years, according
to the municipal records, something like 60,000 scorpions have been
annually killed, the city paying one centavo for each. Some persons
earn a dollar a night by this means. Yet some forty victims, mostly
children, die every year there from scorpion-stings.

The cura quoted above thinks that there is a zone of scorpions
extending from the mining-place of Bramador, near Talpa, Territory
of Tepic, as far north as the city of Durango, though he could not
outline its lateral extent. At Santa Magdalena the scorpions are not
very dangerous.

Chapter XXIX

    A Cordial Reception at San Francisco--Mexicans in the Employ
    of Indians --The Morning Star, the Great God of the Coras--The
    Beginning of the World--How the Rain-clouds were First Secured--The
    Rabbit and the Deer--Aphorisms of a Cora Shaman--An Eventful
    Night--Hunting for Skulls--My Progress Impeded by Padre's
    Ban--Final Start for the Huichol Country--A Threatened Desertion.

At the pueblo of San Francisco, prettily situated at the bend of
a river, I was made very welcome. The Casa Real, another name for
the building generally designated as La Comunidad, had been swept
and looked clean and cool, and I accepted the invitation to lodge
there. It was furnished with the unheard-of luxury of a bedstead,
or rather the framework of one, made of a network of strong strips
of hide. As the room was dark, I moved this contrivance out on the
veranda, where I also stored my baggage, while my aparejos and saddles
were put into the prison next door. Two Indians were appointed to
sleep near by to guard me. When I objected to this I was informed
that two fellows from Jesus Maria had been talking of killing me as
the easiest way of carrying out the padre's orders. I felt quite at
home among these friendly, well-meaning people, and paid off my men,
who returned to their homes. I thought that whenever I decided to
start out again, I could get men here to help me to reach the country
of the Huichols. A shaman who knew more than all others was deputed
to give me the information I wanted about the ancient beliefs and
traditions of the Coras.

The people also agreed to let me see their mitote, which at this
time of the year is given every Wednesday for five consecutive weeks
in order to bring about the rainy season. The fourth of this year's
series was to be on May 22d. As to burial-caves, they at first denied
that there were any skulls in the neighbourhood, but finally consented
to show me some. Later on, how-ever, an important shaman objected to
this, strongly advising the people not to do so, because the dead
helped to make the rain they were praying for, at least they could
be induced not to interfere with the clouds.

A few Coras here were married to "neighbours," and some Cora women
had taken "neighbours" for husbands. For the first time, and also
the last, in all my travels, I had here the gratification of seeing
impecunious Mexicans from other parts of the country at work in the
fields for the Coras, who paid them the customary Mexican wages of
twenty-five centavos a day. The real owners of the land for once
maintained their proper position.

I saw hikuli cultivated near some of the houses in San Francisco. They
were in blossom, producing beautiful large, white flowers. The plant
is used at the mitotes, but not generally.

On both sides of the steep arroyo near San Francisco were a great
number of ancient walls of loose stones, one above the other, a kind
of fortification. In other localities, sometimes in places where one
would least expect them, I found a number of circular figures formed
by upright stones firmly embedded in the ground, in the same way as
those described earlier in this narrative.

The pueblo, _mirabile dictu_, had a Huichol teacher, whom the
authorities considered, and justly so, to be better than the ordinary
Mexican teacher. He was one of nine boys whom the Bishop of Zacatecas,
in 1879, while on a missionary tour in the Huichol country, had picked
out to educate for the priesthood. After an adventurous career, which
drove him out of his own country, he managed now to maintain himself
here. Although his word could not be implicitly trusted, he helped
me to get on with the Coras, and I am under some obligation to him.

A prominent feature in the elaborate ceremonies of the tribe, connected
with the coming of age of boys and girls, is the drinking of home-made
mescal. The lifting of the cochiste, as described among the Aztecs,
is also practised, at least among the Coras of the sierra, and is
always performed at full moon.

The people begin to marry when they are fifteen years old, and
they may live to be a hundred. The arrangement of marriages by the
parents of the boy without consulting him is a custom still largely
followed. On five occasions, every eighth day, they go to ask for
the bride they have selected. If she consents to marry the man, then
all is right. One man of my acquaintance did not know his "affinity"
when his parents informed him that they had a bride for him. Three
weeks later they were married, and, as in the fairy-tale, lived
happily ever afterward. His parents and grandparents fasted before
the wedding. In San Francisco I saw men and women who were married,
or engaged to be married, bathing together in the river.

Fasting is also a notable feature in the religion of the Coras, and is
considered essential for producing rain and good crops. Abstinence from
drinking water for two days during droughts is sometimes observed. The
principal men on such occasions may undertake to do the fasting for
the rest of the people. They then shut themselves up in La Comunidad,
sit down, smoke, and keep their eyes on the ground.

The Coras of the cañon are not always in summer in accord with Father
Sun, because he is fierce, producing sickness and killing men and
animals. Chulavete, the Morning Star, who is the protecting genius of
the Coras, has constantly to watch the Sun lest he should harm the
people. In ancient times, when the Sun first appeared, the Morning
Star, who is cool and disliked heat, shot him in the middle of the
breast, just as he had journeyed nearly half across the sky. The
Sun fell down on earth, but an old man brought him to life again,
so that he could tramp back and make a fresh start.

The Morning Star is the principal great god of the Coras. In the
small hours of the morning they frequently go to some spring and wash
themselves by his light. He is their brother, a young Indian with bow
and arrow, who intercedes with the other gods to help the people in
their troubles. At their dances they first call him to be present,
and tell their wants to him, that he may report them to the Sun and
the Moon and the rest of the gods.

A pathetic story of the modern adventures of this their great hero-god
graphically sets forth the Indian's conception of the condition in
which he finds himself after the arrival of the white man. Chulavete
was poor, and the rich people did not like him. But afterward they took
to him, because they found that he was a nice man, and they asked him
to come and eat with them. He went to their houses dressed like the
"neighbours." But once when they invited him he came like an Indian
boy, almost naked. He stopped outside of the house, and the host came
out with a torch of pinewood to see who it was. He did not recognise
Chulavete, and called out to him: "Get away, you Indian pig! What are
you doing here?" And with his torch he burned stripes down the arms and
legs of the shrinking Chulavete. Next day Chulavete received another
invitation to eat with the "neighbours." This time he made himself
into a big bearded fellow, with the complexion of a man half white,
and he put on the clothes in which they knew him. He came on a good
horse, had a nice blanket over his shoulder, wore a sombrero and a
good sabre. They met him at the door and led him into the house.

"Here I am at your service, to see what I can do for you," he said
to them.

"Oh, no!" they said. "We invited you because we like you, not because
we want anything of you. Sit down and eat."

He sat down to the table, which was loaded with all the good things
rich people eat. He put a roll of bread on his plate, and then began
to make stripes with it on his arms and legs.

"Why do you do that?" they asked him. "We invited you to eat what
we eat."

Chulavete replied: "You do not wish that my heart may eat, but my
dress. Look here! Last night it was I who was outside of your door. The
man who came to see me burned me with his pine torch, and said to me,
'You Indian pig, what do you want here?' "

"Was that you?" they asked.

"Yes, gentlemen, it was I who came then. As you did not give me
anything yesterday, I see that you do not want to give the food to me,
but to my clothes. Therefore, I had better give it to them." He took
the chocolate and the coffee and poured it over himself as if it were
water, and he broke the bread into pieces and rubbed it all over his
dress. The sweetened rice, and boiled hen with rice, sweet atole,
minced meat with chile, rice pudding, and beef soup, all this he
poured over himself. The rich people were frightened and said that
they had not recognised him.

"You burned me yesterday because I was an Indian," he said. "God put
me in the world as an Indian. But you do not care for the Indians,
because they are naked and ugly." He took the rest of the food,
and smeared it over his saddle and his horse, and went away.

The Coras say they originated in the east, and were big people with
broad and handsome faces and long hair. They then spoke another
language, and there were no "neighbours." According to another
tradition, the men came from the east and the women from the west.

In the beginning the earth was fiat and full of water, and therefore
the corn rotted. The ancient people had to think and work and fast
much to get the world in shape. The birds came together to see what
they could do to bring about order in the world, so that it would be
possible to plant corn. First they asked the red-headed vulture, the
principal of all the birds, to set things right, but he said he could
not. They sent for all the birds in the world, one after another,
to induce them to perform the deed, but none would undertake it. At
last came the bat, very old and much wrinkled. His hair and his beard
were white with age, and there was plenty of dirt on his face, as he
never bathes. He was supporting himself with a stick, because he was
so old he could hardly walk. He also said that he was not equal to
the task, but at last he agreed to try what he could do. That same
night he darted violently through the air, cutting outlets for the
waters; but he made the valleys so deep that it was impossible to
walk about, and the principal men reproached him for this. "Then I
will put everything back as it was before," he said.

"No, no!" they all said. "What we want is to make the slopes of a
lower incline, and to leave some level land, and do not make all the
country mountains."

This the bat did, and the principal men thanked him for it. Thus the
world has remained up to this day.

No rain was falling, and the five principal men despatched the
humming-bird to the place in the east where the rain-clouds are living,
to ask them to come over here. The clouds came very fast and killed
the humming-bird, and then returned to their home. After a while
the humming-bird came to life, and told the principal men that the
clouds had gone back. The people then sent out the frog with his five
sons. As he proceeded toward the east he left one of his sons on each
mountain. He called the clouds to come, and they followed and overtook
him on the road. But he hid himself under a stone, and they passed
over him. Then the fifth son called them on, and when they overtook
him he, too, hid himself under a stone. Then the fourth son called
the clouds and hid, then the third son called, and then the second,
and finally the first, who had been placed on a mountain from which
the sea can be seen to the west of the sierra. When the storm-clouds
went away again, the frogs began to sing merrily, which they do to
this day after rain, and they still hide under stones when rain is
coming to the Cora country.

The rabbit in olden times had hoofs like the deer, and the deer had
claws. They met on the road and saluted each other as friends. Said the
deer: "Listen, friend, lend me your sandals, to see how they feel. Only
for a moment." The rabbit, who was afraid the deer would steal them,
refused at first, but at last he agreed, and the deer, putting them on,
rose and began to dance. "Oh, how beautifully it sounds!" he said. He
danced five circuits, and began to dance mitote and sing. The rabbit
sat looking on, and was in a dejected mood, fearing that the deer
might not give him back his sandals. The deer then asked permission
to run five big circuits over the mountains. The rabbit said no, but
the deer went away, promising to come back directly. He returned four
times, but on the fifth round he ran away. The rabbit climbed up on a
mountain and saw the deer already far off. He wanted to follow him, but
he could not, because his feet were bare. The deer never returned the
hoofs to the rabbit, and hoofless the rabbit has remained to this day.

I had many interesting interviews with the old shaman whom the
authorities had appointed to serve me. He confided to me that for
many years he had faithfully fulfilled his office as the principal
singing shaman of the community, but that the people had once suddenly
accused him of practising sorcery and wanted to punish him. Being
very intelligent and upright, he was of great assistance to me,
and the more eager to do all he could for the grudge he bore his
compatriots for accusing him of sorcery. No doubt he was glad of
my coming, as it gave him a chance to rehabilitate himself, since,
for the first time in three years, he had been engaged to sing at the
dance. Be this as it may, I obtained much valuable information from
him. He could elucidate the trend of Indian thought better than any
shaman I had hitherto met, and his talk was full of aphorisms and
opinions with reference to Indian views of life.

Referring to the many regulations and observances the Indians have
to comply with in order to insure food, health, and life, he said:
"A man has to do a good deal to live. Every tortilla we eat is the
result of our work. If we do not work, it does not rain." That the
"work" consists in fasting, praying, and dancing does not detract
from its hardship.

Other sayings I picked up are as follows:

We do not know how many gods there are.

The Moon is man and woman combined; men see in her a woman, women
see a man.

It is better to give a wife to your son before he opens his eyes very
much; if not, he will not know whom he wants.

Illness is like a person; it hears.

Everything is alive; there is nothing dead in the world. The people
say the dead are dead; but they are very much alive.

My friend went with me in the afternoon to the place where the mitote
was to be given. As the preparations of the principal men consume
two days, and I was bent on seeing everything, I went to the place
the day before the dance was to come off. It was a few miles away
in a remote locality, on top of a hill the upper part of which was
composed mainly of huge stones, some of them as regular in shape as if
they had been chiselled. Here and there in the few open spaces some
shrubbery grew. An opening in the midst of the great mass of stones
had been prepared to serve as a dancing-place. The big stones looked
dead enough, but to the Indians they are alive. They are what the
Coras call Táquats or ancient people. Once upon a time they went to a
mitote, just as we were doing now, when the morning star arose before
they arrived at their destination, and all were changed into stone,
and ever since have appeared like stones. My companion pointed out
the various figures of men, women, and children, with their bundles
and baskets, girdles, etc., and in the waning light of day it was not
difficult to understand how the Indians had come to this conception
of the fantastic forms standing all around the place. Even a mountain
may be a Taquat, and all the Taquats are gods to whom the Coras pray
and sacrifice food; but it is bad to talk about them.

It had often been a puzzle to me why primitive people should make
for themselves stone idols to whom they might sacrifice and pray;
but what is to us a rock or stone may be to the Indian a man or a
god of ancient times, now turned into stone. By carving out features,
head, body, or limbs, they only bring before their physical eyes what
is in their mind's eye. This peculiar kind of pantheism can never be
eradicated from the Indian's heart unless he is from infancy estranged
from his tribal life.

In the centre of the dancing-place stood a magnificent tree not yet
in leaf, called _chócote_, and there was some shrubbery growing about
and around the place, which is very old. Only a few yards higher
up among the rocks is a similar spot, with traces of still greater
antiquity. The Indians had promised me that on this occasion one of
their shamans would make a god's eye for me, and I was shown the stone
on which he would sit while making it. It was near the tree; and back
of it, arranged in a circle around the fire, were six similar stones,
in place of the stools I had seen in Pueblo Viejo. The principal men
had swept the place in the morning, and since then had been smoking
pipes and talking to the gods.

There were also present a female principal, an old woman, with her
little granddaughter who represented the moon. These too, it seemed,
had to attend to certain religious duties which they perform for five
years, the child beginning at the innocent age of three. During her
term she lives with the old woman, whether she is related to her or
not. The old lady has charge of the large sacred bowl of the community,
an office vested only in a woman of undoubted chastity. This bowl is
called "Mother," and is prayed to. It consists of half of a large round
gourd, adorned inside and outside with strings of beads of various
colours. It is filled with wads of cotton, under which lie carved stone
figures of great antiquity. None but the chief religious authority is
allowed to lift up the cotton, the symbol of health and life. The bowl
rests also on cotton wads. On festive occasions the woman in charge
brings the bowl to the dancing-place and deposits it at the middle of
the altar. Parrot feathers are stood up along the inner edge, and each
person as he arrives places a flower on top of the cotton inside of
the bowl. This vessel is really the patron saint of the community. It
is like a mother of the tribe, and understands, so the Indians say,
no language but Cora. The Christian saints understand Cora, Spanish,
and French; but the Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, the native saint of
the Mexican Indians, understands all Indian languages.

Leaving the principales to prepare themselves further for the
dance, my friend and I early next morning went to see a sacred cave
where the Huichols go to worship. It was situated in the same hill,
outside of the country of that tribe. There were a great many caves
and cavities between the stones over which we made our way, jumping
from one to another. Near the lower edge of this accumulation of
stones I noticed, down in the dark, deep recesses, ceremonial arrows
which the pious pilgrims from beyond the eastern border of the Cora
land had left. Soon after passing this point We came to a cave,
the approach of which led downward and was rather narrow. With the
aid of a pole or a rope it can easily be entered. I found myself
at one of the ancient places of worship of the Huichol Indians,
the cave of their Goddess of the Western Clouds. It was not large,
but the many singular ceremonial objects, of all shapes and colours,
accumulated within it, made a strange impression upon me. There were
great numbers of ceremonial arrows, many with diminutive deer-snares
attached, to pray for luck in hunting; as well as votive bowls, gods'
eyes, and many other articles by which prayers are expressed. In one
corner was a heap of deer-heads, brought for the same purpose. As my
companion entered, a rat disappeared in the twilight of the cave.

I wanted to take some samples of the articles, but he begged me not
to do it, as the poor fellows who had sacrificed the things might
be cheated out of the benefits they had expected from them. He had,
however, no objection to nay taking a small rectangular piece of
textile fabric, with beautifully colored figures on it. "This is
a back shield," he said, "and the Huichols do not do right by those
things. They place them in the trails leading out of their country, to
prevent the rain from coming to us. Lions and other ferocious animals
are often represented on them, and they frighten the rain back."

On our return to the dancing-place I found the man who had been
deputed to make the god's eye lying in a small cave in quite an
exhausted condition, having fasted for many days. The ceremonial
object had already been made, under incantations. It was very pretty,
white and blue, and had a wad of cotton attached to each corner. Its
efficacy was, however, lost as far as I was concerned, as I had not
been sitting beside the man while he made it, praying for what I
wanted. This is a necessary condition if the Morning Star is to be
made to understand clearly what the supplicant needs.

On the altar, beside the sacred bowl of the community, had been
placed food and many ceremonial objects, not omitting the five ears of
seed-corn to be used in raising the corn required for the feasts. In
the ground immediately in front of the altar were four bunches of
the beautiful tail-feathers of the bluejay.

Opposite to this, on the west side of the place, was another altar,
a smaller one, on which had been put some boiled pinole in potsherds,
with tortillas and a basket of cherries. This was for the dead, who if
dissatisfied might disturb the feast. Afterward the pinole is thrown
on the ground, while the people eat the rest of the food.

The fasting shaman came forth on our arrival and took his position
opposite the main altar, talking to the gods for half an hour. The
newly made god's eye had been stuck into the ground in front of him. On
his left side stood the little girl, and behind her the old woman,
her guardian, and a man, who was smoking tobacco. Two young men, one
at the right, the other at the left, held in their hands sticks with
which they woke up people who fell asleep during the night while the
dance was going on.

The shaman prayed to the Morning Star, presented to him the ears of
corn that were to be used as seed, and asked him to make them useful
for planting. The gods know best how to fructify the grains, since all
the corn belongs to them. "And as for this man," he added, speaking
of me, "you all knew him before he started from his own country. To
us he seems to be good, but you alone know his heart. You give him
the god's eye he asked for."

A little after dark the singer for the occasion began to play a
prelude on the musical bow, which the Coras always glue to the gourd,
uniting the two parts to form one instrument. The gourd was placed
over a small excavation in the ground to increase its resonance. The
singer invoked the Morning Star to come with his brothers, the other
stars, to bring with them their pipes and plumes, and arrive dancing
with the rain-clouds that emanate from their pipes as they smoke. The
Morning Star was also asked to invite the seven principal Taquats to
come with their plumes and pipes.

The Coras-dance like the Tepehuanes and the Aztecs, but with quicker
steps, and every time they pass the altar the dancers turn twice
sharply toward it. At regular intervals the old woman and the little
girl danced, the former smoking a pipe. The little girl had parrot
feathers tied to her forehead and a bunch of plumes from the bluejay
stood up from the back of her head. In the middle of the night she
danced five circuits, carrying a good-sized drinking-gourd containing
water from a near-by brook, which originates in the sacred lagoon.

The shaman sang well, but the dancing lacked animation, and but
few took part in it. When the little girl began to dance with her
grandmother, I seated myself on a small ledge not far from the
musician. Immediately the shaman stopped playing and the dancing
ceased. In an almost harsh voice, and greatly excited, he called to
me, "Come and sit here, sir!" He was evidently very anxious to get
me away from the ledge, and offered me a much better seat on one of
the stones placed for the principal men. I had inadvertently sat
on a Taquat! This sacred rock of the dancing-place had a natural
hollow, which the Indians think is his votive bowl, and into which
they put pinole and other food. "Never," my friend told me next day,
"had anyone sat there before."

Later in the evening, when there was a pause in the performance,
I noticed that all the men, with the singing shaman, gathered in a
corner of the dancing-place, seating themselves on the ground. They
were discussing what they should do in regard to the skulls I had
asked for. One of the principal men told them that a dream last night
had advised him not to deny the "Señor" anything he asked for, as
he had to have a "head" and would not go without one. "You are daft,
and he comes here knowing a good deal," the dream had said.

They all became alarmed, especially the man who had steadily opposed
their complying with my request, and they agreed that it was better
to give the white man what he wanted. The gobernador even raised the
question whether it would not be best to let me have the skulls early
next morning, together with the other things I was to get; or, if not
then, at what other time? My shaman friend diplomatically proposed
that I should set the time for this.

Next morning I got the god's eye as well as a splendid specimen of
a musical bow with the gourd attached, the playing-sticks, etc., all
of which were taken out of a cave near the dancing-place. There was
another cave near by, into which the principal men are accustomed to
go to ask permission from the sun and moon and all the other Taquats
to make their feasts.

The morning saw the feast concluded in about the usual way. Tobacco was
smoked over the seed-corn on the altar, and sacred water was sprinkled
from a red orchid over everything on the altar, including the sacred
bowl and the flowers on top of it, as well as over the heads of all
the people present, to insure health and luck. This is done on behalf
of the Morning Star, because he throws blessed water Over the whole
earth, and on the corn and the fruit the Coras eat. The flowers are
afterward taken home, even by the children, and put in cracks in the
house walls, where they remain until removed by the hand of time.

The people of Santa Teresa and San Francisco, at certain rain-making
feasts, fashion a large locust (_chicharra_) out of a paste made of
ground corn and beans, and place it on the altar. In the morning,
after the dancing of the mitote, it is divided among the participants
of the feast, each eating his share. This is considered more efficient
even than the dancing itself.

It is evident that the religious customs of the cañon of Jesus Maria
are on the wane, mainly because the singing shamans are dying out,
though curing shamans will remain for centuries yet. As the Indians
now have to perform their dances secretly, the growing generation
has less inclination and little opportunity to learn them, and the
tribe's ritual and comprehensive songs will gradually become lost.

My shaman friend in San Francisco complained to me that the other
shamans did not know the words of the songs well enough. Tayop (Father
Sun) and the other gods do not understand them, he said, and therefore
these shamans cannot accomplish anything with "los señores." It was
like sending a badly written letter: "the gentlemen" pass it from
one to another, none of them being able to make out its meaning.

In the mean time my efforts to obtain anthropological specimens were
more laborious than successful, because it was very difficult to get
anyone to show me where they could be found. To make things worse,
suddenly another man dreamed that I had enough "heads," and so I was
not permitted to search for them any more. But I did not intend to
content myself with the few I had secured. I had made arrangements with
a Cora some time before to show me some skulls he knew of, and after
much procrastination on his part I at last got him to accompany me.

We rode for fifteen miles in the direction of Santa Teresa. The
country was rough and but sparsely inhabited. In fact, I passed three
deserted ranches, and near one of them I killed a Gila monster that
was just making its burrow. There lay an air of antiquity over the
whole landscape. About half a league before reaching the caves we
sought, I came upon quite an extensive fortification; I also noticed
a number of trincheras in one arroyo; and above it on a mesa, running
along the edge, we found a wall built of loose stones. The mesa, 300
by 200 feet in extent, was a natural fortress difficult of access,
except at one point where a little cordon, like an isthmus, led to
it. Here, however, I found no vestige of ancient inhabitants.

There were two shallow caves close to each other in the remote valley
into which the guide had led me. In the larger one, which was eight
feet deep and twelve feet broad, nine skulls were found. In the other
were only a few bones, and I noticed indications of partitions, in the
shape of upright stones, between the skeletons. The bodies must have
been partly buried, with the heads protruding, in spaces a foot square.

It was nearing dusk and I had to get back to my camp that evening. On
the road my mule gave out, and for the last part of the way I had
to walk. I refreshed myself with some zapotes, which were just in
season. This native fruit of Mexico has the flavour of the pear and
the strawberry, and is delicious when picked fresh from the tree;
but as soon as it falls to the ground it is infested with insects.

Contrary to expectation, when I was ready to leave the village,
I found it exceedingly difficult to get men. As the Coras here do
not understand the mule business, I had to resort to the Mexicans in
the valley, who, however, acting under instructions from the padre,
would have nothing to do with me. They even shunned those who were
seen in my company. One man who used to carry on some trading with
the Huichols was more daring than the rest. He declared that he would
serve the devil himself if he got paid for it, and tried to make up a
party for me, but failed. He was ruining his reputation for my sake,
he told me; even his compadre (his child's godfather), on account
of his association with me, ran away when he saw him coming. The
situation finally became so exasperating that I was compelled to write
to the Bishop in Tepic, and lay the case before him. I stated that the
padre, without having seen me, had placed me in a bad light before the
people, and had then left the country, making it impossible for me to
convince him of his error of judgment; that if it were not for the
strong recommendations I had from the Government and the Commanding
General of the Territory, it would be impossible for me to stay here,
except at great personal risk.

To await an answer, however, would have involved too great a loss
of time. Luckily I found three dare-devil fellows, but recently come
into the valley for a living, who were willing to go with me. These,
together with the man already mentioned and one Cora Indian, enabled
me to make a start. Thus I parted from pretty San Francisco, and the
nice Indians there, who had believed in me in spite of the wickedness
the Mexicans had attributed to me. The Coras are the only primitive
race I have met who seem to have acquired the good qualities of the
white man and none of his bad ones.

On an oppressively hot June morning, when I finally got away, the
alcalde rode along with me for a couple of miles. We soon began to
ascend the slope of the mountains that form the western barrier
of the Huichol country, which, among the Mexicans, is reputed to
be accessible only at four points. Next morning, while packing the
mules, the father of one of my Mexicans ran up to us with a message
that seemed quite alarming. Immediately after I left San Francisco
yesterday, the Mexican authority at Jesus Maria had come over to tell
me that the Huichols were on the warpath and determined not to allow
me to enter their pueblos. The messenger impressed upon my men the
necessity of turning back and implored them not to run any risk by
accompanying me. The chief packer came hastily to me with this news,
which I at once declared to be false. But the men, nevertheless,
stopped packing, and proposed to go back. They declared that the
Huichols were bad, that they were assassins, that there were many of
them, and that they would kill us all.

Now, what was I to do? To turn back from the tribe the study of which
had been from the outset my principal aim was not to be thought of;
even to delay the trip would be impossible, as the wet season was fast
approaching, in which one cannot travel for months. I tried to reason
with them and to ease their minds by pointing out the great experience
I had had with Indians in general. I also appealed to their manly
pride and courage. "Have we not five rifles?" I said. "Cannot each one
of you fight fifty Indians?" Still they wavered, and it looked as if
they were going to desert me, when the cook courageously exclaimed:
_"Vámos, vámos!"_ ("Let us go on!") They again began to pack, and I
managed to keep my troupe together.

The real danger for me lay in the evil rumours the Mexicans had spread,
and in. the fact that the whites were afraid of me. The Indians do
not follow the "neighbours" in their reasoning; they only think that
a white man of whom even the Mexicans are afraid must certainly be
terrible. The reason why I had chosen this route was that a friend of
mine in far-away Guadalajara had given me a letter of recommendation
to an acquaintance of his, a half-caste, who acted as escribano
(secretary) to the pueblo of San Andres, or, to give its name in full,
San Andres Coamiata. I had been told that this man was temporarily
absent, in which case I should be at the mercy of the strange Indians.

The immediate prospect looked dark enough to make me consider the
advisability of the long detour to the town of Mezquitic, to get
assistance from the government authorities there and to enter the
Huichol country from the east by way of Santa Catarina. Against
this plan, however, my men urged that they could not be back in
their country before the wet season set in, to attend to their
fields. Finally, I decided to risk going to San Andres. If Don
Zeferino was not there, I would come back and then try Mezquitic. Two
days later, after a laborious ascent, I sent my chief packer ahead to
San Andres, which was still about eight miles off. What a mountainous
country all around us! The Jesuit father Ortega was right when he said
of the Sierra del Nayarit: "It is so wild and frightful to behold that
its ruggedness, even more than the arrows of its warlike inhabitants,
took away the courage of the conquerors, because not only did the
ridges and valleys appear inaccessible, but the extended range of
towering mountain peaks confused even the eye."

My messenger returned after two days, saying that Don Zeferino was
at home and would be at my disposal. In the meantime it had begun to
rain; my men were anxious to return home to the valley, and I started
for San Andres.

END OF VOL. I.

NOTES

[1] I have used once or twice the expression _gentile_ Indians,
referring to these Tarahumares.

[2] Several years after my expedition passed through those regions
the Apaches on more than one occasion attacked outlying Mormon ranches
and killed several persons.

[3] See page 356.

[4] With which the fruit is brought down.

[5] The Rio Fuerte, the only large water-course in the Tarahumare
country, empties into the Pacific Ocean.

[6] As related by an old "Christian" Tarahumare woman in Huerachic,
on the upper Rio Fuerte.

[7] A kind of tomato.

End of Project Gutenberg's Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2), by Carl Lumholtz