Unknown Mexico Part 11

As I travelled along I found the natives un.o.bliging and afraid of me. One man who had hid himself, but was after a while forced to reappear, bluntly asked, "Are you not the man who kills the fat girls and the children?" At another time I was taken for Pedro Chaparro, the famous robber, who had notoriously deceived the Indians. The guide took only a half-hearted interest in me, as he feared that by being seen with me he was ruining his trade with the natives, who were especially suspicious about my writing in my note-book, taking it as a proof of my design to take their land away from them. Still, I accomplished a good deal and made interesting observations, though the difficulties under which I had to labour were quite exasperating.

It was a positive relief, when in the beginning of August, six weeks after my start from Guachochic, I arrived at Guajochic (guajo = _sancudo_, a small mosquito), one of the stations where the bullion trains stop on their travels between Batopilas and Carichic. The man then in charge of this rather lonely looking place, Andres Madrid, turned out to be very interesting. Born of Tarahumare parents, in the town of Carichic, he had received quite a liberal Mexican education and was virtually a Mexican, though in hearty sympathy with his native tribe. His grandfather had been a noted shaman, or medicine man, whom Don Andres, as a boy, had accompanied on his travels. He was intelligent, lively and imaginative, of a strong humourous vein, and very entertaining. Generous in giving information about the Indians, and speaking the native language, he would have made an ideal interpreter, except for the fact that he grew tired too easily. Only by piecemeal and when having an abundance of time could an ethnologist expect to take advantage of his accomplishments. As he was honest, and helpful to the Indians, and besides was a representative of the Mexican authorities, the Indians had unlimited respect, nay, adoration, for him.

Knowing all that happens in the sierra, he had already heard of me some time ago, and laughed at the cannibalistic propensities attributed to me. He immediately sent a messenger to el capitan at Nararachic, to advise him of my arrival, and to request him to tell the Indians to present themselves to be photographed by a man who came from Porfirio Diaz, a name to conjure with in Mexico, who wanted to know all about the Tarahumares. Nararachic is an insignificant pueblo, to which the Indians of this locality belong. The name means "where one was weeping."

Being taken under the wing of Don Andres benefitted me in many ways. When the Indians from the hills all around could see my white tent close by his little home, they understood that I could not be so bad, or else the good Don Andres would not have anything to do with me.

The Indians in the vicinity had recently gone through the sensation of fighting with four real robbers, who had several times succeeded in plundering store-houses while the owners were off at some feast. At last the Indians had caught them. The thieves travelled on foot, but had a pack-horse which carried all the blankets and handkerchiefs stolen, the total value of which ran up to $112. Sixty-five Tarahumares had banded together in the course of four or five hours, and obliged the robbers to take refuge in a cave, from which they defended themselves with rifles for several hours. The Tarahumares first threw stones at them, as they did not want to waste their arrows. Finally Don Andres, who had been sent for, arrived at the place, and induced the robbers to surrender; but only with difficulty could he prevent the Tarahumares from attacking them. "What does it matter," they said, "if one or two of us are killed?" Cowards as the Tarahumares are when few in number, they do not know fear when many of them are together. They are harmless when not interfered with, but neither forget nor forgive an injury. On several occasions they have killed white men who abused their hospitality, and they even threatened once, when exasperated by abuses, to exterminate all the whites in some sections of their domain.

The robbers were taken by an escort of Indians to the little town of Carichic, and from there sent to Cusihuiriachic ("where upright pole is") to be tried. This place is about a hundred miles from Nararachic, and as the Indians during the next weeks were called to be present at the trial as witnesses, it annoyed them not a little. They were sorry they had not killed the evil-doers; and it would even have been better, they said, to have let them go on stealing.

In the fight the gobernador had got a bullet through his lung. I saw him a fortnight afterward, smoking a cigarette and on the way to recovery, and after some days he, too, walked to Cusihuiriachic. A few months later the robbers managed to dig themselves out of the prison.

On an excursion of about ten miles through the picturesque Arroyo de las Iglesias, I pa.s.sed seventeen caves, of which only one was at present inhabited. All of them, however, had been utilised as dwellings before the construction of the road to Batopilas had driven the Indians off.

I saw also a few ancient cave-dwellings. Of considerable interest were some burial-caves near Nararachic, especially one called Narajerachic (= where the dead are dancing). A Mexican had been for six years engaged there in digging out saltpetre, with which he made powder, and the cave was much spoiled for research when I visited it. But I was able to take away some thirty well-preserved skulls and a few complete skeletons, the bodies having dried up in the saltpetre. Some clothing with feathers woven in, and some bits of obsidian and of blue thread were found, but no weapons or utensils. According to the miner, who appeared to be trustworthy, he had excavated more than a hundred corpses. They were generally found two and a half feet below the surface, and sometimes there were others underneath these. With many of them he found ear ornaments made of sh.e.l.ls, such as the Tarahumares of to-day use, besides some textile made of plant fibre, and a jar with beans.

A few months later at Aboreachic (Tarahumare: Aoreachic = where there is mountain cedar) I examined a burial-cave in which the dead were interred in a different manner from that described before. The cave is somewhat difficult of access. The ascent of 300 feet has to be made over a track at some places so steep that holes have been cut for the feet, to enable a person to climb up. On reaching the top I found a s.p.a.cious cave, which had been used as a kind of cemetery, but unfortunately the peculiarity of the cave had attracted treasure-seekers, whose destructive work was everywhere to be seen. Still I could see that the corpses had been placed each by itself in a grave in the floor of the cave. The graves were oblong or circular basins lined with a coating of gra.s.s and mud and about three feet deep. Apparently no earth had been placed immediately over the body, only boards all around it laid lengthwise in a kind of box. The bodies were bent up and laid on their sides. Over the top boards was spread a layer of pine bark about an inch thick, which in turn was covered with earth and rubbish three inches deep, and this was overlaid with the coating of gra.s.s and mud so as to form a solid disk four or five inches, thick. The edge of the basin was slightly raised, thus making the disk a little higher than the level of the floor. I secured four skulls from here, besides a piece of excellently woven cloth of plant fibre, another piece interwoven with turkey feathers, and a fragment of a wooden needle.

Don Andres told me that he had observed similar modes of burial in the neighbourhood of Nararachic. It may be worth mentioning that the miner who excavated in the burial-cave near Nararachic mentioned above, told me of having met with somewhat similar structures in his cave; the material was the same, but they were of different sizes, not larger than two feet, and he found them empty.

The ancient modes of burial that I have come upon, in the Tarahumare country are either like those in Nararachic or in Aboreachic. There scarcely seems any doubt that the bodies buried here were Tarahumares. The Indians of to-day consider the dead in the ancient burial-caves their brethren, and call them Ana-yauli, the ancients.

From Guajochic I went to Nonoava (in Tarahumare: Nonoa, nono = father), although this town is outside of the Tarahumare country proper. The natives here, as may be expected, are pretty well Mexicanised, and losing their customs, religion, and language. The Apache raids were well remembered here, as they were in Carichic, Cusarare, and Bocoyna.

I came upon a Mexican here who had married a Tarahumare woman. His predilection for her tribe was also attested by his dress, which was exactly like that worn by the natives. He had a dark, almost swarthy complexion, but otherwise he did not resemble an Indian. His big; stomach and short arms and legs betrayed his real race, and contrasted strangely with the slender limbs and graceful movements of the Tarahumares.

Near Nonoava I photographed a magnificent fig-tree of the kind called _beyota_, the fruit of which is appreciated even by the Mexicans. It was 116 feet across, and the leaves, as in other trees of the species, were very small. There are larger trees of this kind to be found, but they are rare. In the wet season, when the figs are ripe, the Tarahumares have a habit of singing under the trees while gathering the fruit.

I noticed some beautiful mezquites in the bed of a creek, the bottom of which was clayish. Although the season for it was late, Indians were gathering the fruit. The proper season is before the rain sets in. The Indians throw the seeds away, but boil the fruit, grinding it between stones and mixing it with water. This drink is also used through Sonora and Chihuahua by the Mexicans.

On my return I again spent some time in Guajochic. The Indians came to visit me every day, and following my rule of giving to every visitor something to eat, I was making satisfactory progress in cultivating their friendship. Some of them after eating from my plates and cups, went to the river to rinse their mouths and wash their hands carefully, to get rid of any evil that might lurk in the white man's implements. To be generous is the first step toward gaining the confidence of both the Indians and the Mexicans, and a gift of food is more eloquent than a long speech. The Indian, however, before he knows you, always wants to see you eat first.

I interviewed many of the shamans, and began to gain some little knowledge of their songs, which helped to bring me nearer to them. Shortly after my first arrival here it happened that rain fell, and precipitations continued quite frequently during my stay. The Indians, who are intensely interested in rain, to obtain which they make so many exertions and sacrifices, evidently began to connect my presence with it. Before my departure they confided to Don Andres that "It was no good that that man went away; it might happen that he carried the rain with him." They even seemed to delight now in posing before my mysterious camera, which they imagined to be a powerful rain-maker. I heard no more excuses for not wanting to be photographed. They no longer told me that it would cause their death, and that their G.o.d would be angry with them; nor was there any more of that unwillingness expressed by one Indian who told me that, inasmuch as he did not owe me anything, he did not want to be photographed. Thus, almost without knowing it, I established friendly relations with the people.

However, it must not be thought that all my troubles were ended yet. The Indians are very clannish, and, although my damaged prestige was now almost restored, and, no doubt, favourable rumours heralded me wherever I went, still the good-will of each district had in a way to be won. Many months later, when I found myself among the pagans farther south, I was interpellated quite persistently on the subject of the skulls in Yoquibo. They wanted to know why I had dug them up. My Mexican interpreter, whom they took to task on the subject, advanced an explanation, which was no doubt strictly in accordance with his best knowledge and belief. He declared that my object had been to find out whether those people had been properly baptised--a reason which apparently perfectly satisfied the Indians.

I travelled in a southeasterly direction, making my way back to Guachochic, over the highlands of Humarisa (humashi = to run). This locality is of considerable elevation, with the Indian ranches lying about here and there on strips of level land, which run in among the rocky hills like _fjords_. Bears are quite common here, and the Indians have difficulty in guarding their fields against them. They are not even to be frightened by stones, and at night they will eat corn until they have enough, and then walk away.

The time of the year in which it is most difficult for the Indians to subsist had pa.s.sed, and the copious rains of the past months had developed ears of corn. Rarely or never do the Indians plant corn enough to last them all the year round, and they have, therefore, during the summer to depend for support mainly on herbs, roots, fruits, etc. The leaves and flowers of the ash-tree are cooked and eaten, and the flowers of the pine-tree. They never suffer from hunger when living near a river, where they can fish, but in the highlands they have been known to die of starvation.

These natives are fonder of corn than of any other food, and when working for the whites would leave without a word if no more corn or flour were forthcoming. They like, too, to have meat every day, though they cannot always get it. They rarely, if ever, kill any of their domestic animals for food, as, according to their views, man is only the manager for the G.o.ds to whom these creatures really belong, and cows, sheep, and the like can be killed only as sacrifices and eaten at the feasts. But any kind of animal in the forest and field, in the air and the water, is acceptable. I once asked a strong and healthy-looking Indian how he managed to keep in such good condition, when food was so scarce, and he said that he ate meat, "What kind of meat?" I asked, and he replied, "Mice, gophers, and small birds." Their favourite meat, however, is deer, mice, and skunks.

Chunks of meat are simply laid upon the coals to roast, or turned before the fire on a wooden spit, the ends of which rest on stones. This, by the way, is the universal method of cooking meat in Mexico. These Indians often eat their meat almost raw, nor have they any repugnance to blood, but boil and eat it. Fish and frogs are broiled by being placed between two thin sticks tied together at the ends to do duty as a gridiron.

The flowers of the maize are dried in the sun, ground and mixed with water; if not required for immediate consumption they are put in jars and kept for the winter. Many herbs are very palatable, as, for instance, the makvasari (of the _Crucifercae_), which is also kept for winter use after having been properly dried. In the autumn the Indians sometimes eat potatoes, which, when cultivated at all, are planted between the corn, but grow no larger than pigeon eggs. The people eat three kinds of fungi, and they have an extensive knowledge of the poisonous ones. Salt and chile are used as relishes.

A peculiar delicacy is ari, the secretion of a scale insect, _carteria mexcicana_. In the months of July and August it is gathered from the branches of certain trees in the barrancas, rolled by hand into thick brown sticks, and thus preserved for the winter. A small portion is boiled in water and eaten as a sauce with the corn porridge. Its taste is sweetish acid, not particularly pleasant to the palate, but very refreshing in effect, and it is said to be efficacious in allaying fever. The Indians prize it highly, and the Mexicans also buy it.

Just a few miles before reaching Guachochic, one pa.s.ses the pueblo of Tonachic, from whence the Indians have been more or less driven off by the whites. In missionary times the village appears to have been of some importance, to judge from the church, which is quite pretty, considering its location in the middle of the sierra. In the sacristy I saw lying about three empty cases, but the silver crucifixes and chalices they once contained had been carried off by Mexican thieves. The man in charge of the building showed me three immense drawers full of gold- and silver-embroidered silken robes of exquisite fineness and great variety. There were at least several dozens of them.

The altar-piece was arranged and painted very tastefully in red and gold. Several oil paintings were hanging in the church, but so darkened by the hand of time that it was impossible to make out whether they were of any artistic merit. Wonderful men those early missionaries, who brought such valuables into this wilderness, over hundreds and thousands of miles, on the backs of mules or Indians. It was rather anomalous to see the poor, naked Indians outside the door, for whose benefit all this had been done. A woman was sweeping away the dirt from the swarms of bats that nested in the ceiling.

The richest and most prominent man in the village enjoyed the reputation of being a great ladron. When I called on him I found him in bed suffering from a tooth-ache. He had his head wrapped up and was completely unnerved, and many people came to sympathise with him in his affliction. When I told him that I liked the Tarahumares, he answered, "Well, take them with you, every one of them." All he cared for was their land, and he had already acquired a considerable portion of it. His wife was the only person in the village who knew how to recite the prayers in the church. This made the husband feel proud of her, and he evidently considered her piety great enough to suffice for the family.

On my return to Guachochic I discharged the Mexicans who had been with me since my travels through Sonora; they were here of little use to me, as they did not know the country. I also disposed of the greater number of my mules, keeping only about half a dozen.

With the kind permission of Don Miguel I installed most of my baggage in one of his houses, and considered his ranch a kind of headquarters from which I made several long excursions in various directions. Thanks to my pack and riding mules I could take along, as barter, corn, gla.s.s beads, tobacco, and cotton cloth, and bring back collections made on the road. I was accompanied by a couple of Mexicans from this part of the country and some Indians who acted as carriers. Of course, whenever I went down into the barrancas, I had to leave my mules and cargo in some safe place on the highlands and take along only the most necessary stores as we proceeded on foot. On such trips I had to depend entirely on the natives; they secured the food, and selected the cave or rock shelter, or the tree under which we slept.

Our bill of fare was made up mainly of corn and beans, with an occasional sheep or goat, and some herbs and roots as relishes. Corn was prepared in the styles known to the Indians, either as corn-cakes (tortillas) or, more often, by simply toasting the grains on a piece of crockery over the fire. The dish is easy enough to prepare and does not taste at all bad, but it is hard work for one's teeth to make a meal of it, as the kernels a.s.sume the consistency of little pebbles, and many months of such a diet lengthens your dentist's bill at about the same ratio as that in which it shortens your molars. You will ask why I did not carry provisions along with me. Simply because preserved food is, as a rule, heavy to carry, to say nothing of its being next to impossible to secure more when the supply is exhausted. Some chocolate and condensed milk which I ordered from Chihuahua did not reach me until seven months after the date of the order. Besides, the Indians are not complaisant carriers, least of all in this exceedingly rough country.

For over a year I thus continued to travel around among the Tarahumares, visiting them on their ranches and in their caves, on the highlands and in the barrancas. There are few valleys into which I did not go in this central part of the Tarahumare country, that is, from the Barranca de Batopilas and Carichic in the north toward the regions of the mining place Guadalupe y Calvo in the south. By and by I also found a suitable lenguaraz, Don Nabor, who lived a day's journey from Guachochic. He was a tall, lank, healthy-looking fellow, some fifty years old, very poor and blessed with a large family of sons and daughters, some of them full grown. All his life he had been intimate with the Indians; he spoke their language as well as he did Spanish, and really liked the Tarahumares better than his fellow Mexicans. Being a great hunter but a poor shot he brought home but little game, and made his living chiefly by trading with the Indians. He was the picture of good-nature, laughing with the Indians at their jokes, and weeping with them at their sorrows. Among them he pa.s.sed as a wit, and being very honest was a general favourite. He never took anything without asking, but was not backward about that. Of his teeth he had hardly any but two of his upper incisors left, which was rather hard for a man of his ravenous appet.i.te; but he utilised them with such squirrel-like dexterity as almost to keep pace with others.

Chapter XIII

The Tarahumare Physique--Bodily Movements--Not as Sensitive to Pain as White Men--Their Phenomenal Endurance--Health--Honesty--Dexterity and Ingenuity--Good Observers of the Celestial Bodies and Weather-forecasters--Hunting and Shooting--Home Industries--Tesvino, the Great National Drink of the Tribe--Other Alcoholic Drinks.

The Tarahumare of to-day is of medium size and more muscular than his North American cousin, but his cheek-bones are equally prominent. His colour is light chocolate-brown. I was rather surprised often to find the faces of the people living in the warm barrancas of a lighter colour than the rest of their bodies. The darkest complexions, strange to say, I encountered on the highlands near Guachochic. In the higher alt.i.tudes the people also develop higher statures and are more muscular than in the lower portions of the country.

Both men and women wear long, flowing, straight black hair, which in rare cases is a little wavy. When a woman marries, I am told, she cuts her hair once. When the hair is cut because it has grown too long and troublesome, they place it under a stone or hang it in a tree. A shaman once cut his hair short to get new thoughts with the new hair, and while it was growing he kept his head tied up in a piece of cotton cloth to keep his thoughts from escaping. When the people are very old, the hair turns gray; but they never grow bald. Beards are rare, and if they appear the Indians pull them out. Their devil is always represented with a beard, and they call the Mexicans derisively shabotshi, "the bearded ones." Much as they enjoy tobacco, an Indian would not accept some from me, because he feared that coming from a white man it would cause a beard to grow on his face.

There are more women in the tribe than men. They are smaller, but generally just as strong as the other s.e.x, and when angered, for instance by jealousy, the wife may be able to beat her husband. Hands and feet are small. Many of the women have surprisingly small and well-shaped bones, while the men are more powerfully built. The corner teeth differ from the front teeth in that they are thicker, and, in spite of exceptionally fine teeth, tooth-ache is not unknown in the tribe. Men, even those who are well nourished, are never stout. The women are more inclined to corpulency.

Eight people with hair-lip, seven hunchbacks, six men and four women with six toes to their feet, and one or two cases of squint-eyes came under my notice. One boy had a club-foot with toes turned inside, and I saw one man who had only stumps of arms with two or three finger-marks on each. I have observed one case of insanity among these Indians.

_Pediculi_ (lice) from the heads and clothing of the Tarahumare are blackish in colour, but the claw is not different from that of the white men's parasites.

When at ease, the Tarahumare stands on both legs, without stiffness. In micturition he stands, while the Tepehuane sits down. The body is well balanced. The gait is energetic. He swings his arm and plants his foot firmly, with the toes generally in, gliding along smoothly with quick steps and without swaying to and fro, the body bent slightly forward. The palm of the hand is turned to the rear. Tarahumares climb trees by embracing the tree as we do; but the ascent is made in jumps, the legs accordingly not embracing the tree as, much as is the case with us. In swimming they throw their arms ahead from one side to another. They point with the open hand or by protruding the lips and raising the head at the same time in the desired direction. Like the Mexicans they beckon with their hands by making downward movements with their fingers.

To the casual observer the native appears dull and heavy, so much so that at first it would seem hopeless to get any intelligent information out of him; but on better acquaintance it will be found that their faces, like those of Mexican Indians in general, have more variety of feature and expression than those of the whites. At the same time it is true that the individual does not show his emotion very perceptibly in his face. One has to look into his eyes for an expression of what pa.s.ses in his mind, as his face is not mobile; nor does he betray his feelings by involuntary actions. If he blushes, as he sometimes does, the colour extends down the neck and is visible in spite of his dusky skin. Laughter is never immoderate enough to bring tears to the eyes. The head is nodded vertically in affirmation and shaken laterally in negation only by the civilised Tarahumares.

There is a slight though undefinable odour about the Tarahumare. He is not aware of it; yet he will tell you that the Mexican smells like a pig, and the American like coffee, both offensive odours to Tarahumares. They all love to feel warm, and may often be seen lying in the sun on their backs or stomachs. Heat never seems to trouble them. Young babies sleep on their mothers' backs without any covering on their heads to protect them from the fierce rays of the summer sun. On the other hand, the Tarahumare endures cold unflinchingly. On an icy winter morning, when there are six inches of snow on the ground, many a man may be seen with nothing on but his blanket fastened around his waist, pursuing rabbits.

While their senses are keen, I do not consider them superior to those of any well-endowed white man. To test eyesight, Sir Francis Galton directs us to cut out a square piece of white paper one and a half inches a side, paste it on a large piece of black paper, and mark how far a person can distinguish whether the square is held straight or diagonally. None of the Indians could distinguish the different positions until they were within seven hundred and ten feet. On another occasion, however, when I tested six individuals, four men could tell the position of the square at a distance of nine hundred and five feet. One of these had syphilis. They certainly do not feel pain in the same degree as we do. On this point any collector of hair could have reason to satisfy himself. Scientists consider the hair a particularly distinguishing feature among the races of men, not only in regard to its colour, but also as to its texture. In fact, the human race is by some cla.s.sified according to the character of the hair of the head. Compared under the microscope a section of the hair of a Chinaman or an American Indian is found to be circular, that of a European oval in shape. As a rule, the flatter the hair the more readily it curls, the perfectly cylindrical hair hanging down stiff and straight. A section of the straight hair of a j.a.panese, for instance, forms a perfect circle. So much importance being attached to the structure of the hair, I made a collection from different individuals. They were willing enough to let me have all the samples I wanted for a material consideration, of course, but the indifferent manner in which they pulled the hair from their heads, just as we should tear out hairs from the tail of a horse, convinced me that inferior races feel pain to a less extent than civilised man. I once pulled six hairs at a time from the head of a sleeping child without disturbing it at all; I asked for more, and when twenty-three hairs were pulled out in one stroke, the child only scratched its head a little and slept on.

They are not so powerful at lifting as they are in carrying burdens. Out of twelve natives, ten of whom were eighteen and twenty years old, while two owned to fifty years, five lifted a burden weighing 226 2/5 pounds (102 kilograms). I was able to lift this myself. The same five lifted 288 3/5 pounds (130 kilograms), as also did two strong Mexicans present, aged respectively eighteen and thirty years. In order to test their carrying capacity, I had them walk for a distance of 500 feet on a pretty even track. One very poor and starved-looking Tarahumare carried 226 2/5 pounds (102 kilograms) on his back, though tottering along with some difficulty; two others carried it with ease, and might have taken it farther. All three were young men.

Their endurance is truly phenomenal. A strong young man carried a burden of over 100 pounds from Carichic to Batopilas, a distance of about 110 miles, in seventy hours. While travelling with such burdens they eat nothing but pinole, a little at frequent intervals.

The wonderful health these people enjoy is really their most attractive trait. They are healthy and look it. It could hardly be otherwise in this delightful mountain air, laden with the invigorating odour of the pines combined with the electrifying effect of being close to nature's heart. In the highlands, where the people live longer than in the barrancas, it is not infrequent to meet persons who are at least a hundred years old. Long life is what they all pray for.

They suffer sometimes from rheumatism, but the most common disease is pleurisy (_dolor de costado_), which generally proves fatal. Syphilis rages in some parts of the country. There was at the time of my visit to Pino Gordo hardly a native there who had not, at one time or another, been afflicted with it; but the victims get quickly over it without special treatment, sometimes within a year. Children of syphilitic parents show the symptoms soon after birth. Small-pox, too, plays havoc among the population. I have seen some people suffering with cataract in the eyes, and some foot-runners complained that their sight sometimes became impaired during or after a race. The Tarahumares have not any cases of tape-worm, although their sheep have it; probably the large quant.i.ties of tesvino drunk during the winter may have something to do with this.

Medicine takes remarkably strong hold of the Indians. One man suffered for two weeks from fever and ague, lost his appet.i.te, and seemed a general wreck; but after a two-grain quinine pill became at once himself again, and a few days later was able to take a message for me to a place forty miles off and return the same day.