Unknown Mexico Part 6

There were repeated falls of snow, and the sierra a.s.sumed a thoroughly northern aspect. Only the mult.i.tude of green parrots with pretty red and yellow heads, chattering in the tree-tops and feasting on pine cones, reminded us that we were in southern lat.i.tudes. As all tracks had been obliterated by the snow, I secured a Mormon to guide us southward.

About ten miles south of Pacheco we pa.s.sed Mound Valley, or "Los Montezumas," so named after the extraordinary number of montezumas, or mounds, found in the locality, probably not far from a thousand. Looking at them from a distance, there seemed to be some plan in their arrangement, inasmuch as they formed rows running from north to south. They are small, and nearly all of them are on the south side of a sloping plain which spread itself over about 500 acres in the midst of densely pine-covered highlands.

On making camp a few miles south of this plateau we found that one of the mules had strayed off. My dismay over the loss of the animal was not alleviated by the news that the mule was the one that carried my blankets and tent, and that I had a good prospect of pa.s.sing at least one uncomfortable night on the snow. The American who had been intrusted with keeping count of the animals on the road immediately went back to look for the lost one; but not until next day did a Mexican, who had been sent along with him, bring back the pack, which the mule had managed to get rid of. The animal itself and its aparejo were never recovered by us.

On my arrival at Chuhuichupa I found everything satisfactory. There are extensive gra.s.s-lands here, and a few years after our visit the Mormons established a colony. The name Chuhuichupa is interesting, as it is the first one we came upon that was of undoubted Tarahumare origin "chuhui." being the Spanish corruption of "Chu-i," which means "dead." The name signifies "the place of the dead," possibly alluding to burial caves.

Here Mr. Taylor had discovered very interesting cave-dwellings, fifteen miles southeast to east in a straight lilac from the camp, but fully twenty-five miles by the track he had followed. The Mexicans called the cave Garabato, a Spanish word, which in Mexico is used in the sense of "decorative designs," and refers here to ancient paintings or scrawlings on the house walls. The cave is situated in a gorge on the northern slope of the Arroyo Garabato, which drains into the Rio Chico. It is in conglomerate formation, faces east, and lies about 215 feet above the bottom of the gorge. The ascent is steep and somewhat difficult. At a little distance the high, regular walls of the houses, with their many door and window openings, presented a most striking contrast to their surroundings of snow-covered jagged cliffs, in the lonely wilderness of pine woods. Some of the walls had succ.u.mbed to the weight of ages, but, on the whole, the ruins are in a good state of preservation, and although I found cave-dwellings as far south as Zapuri, Chihuahua, none of them were nearly as well preserved nor on such an extensive scale. Time would not allow me to visit the cave myself, and the following description is based on notes taken by Mr. Taylor on the spot, as well as on his photographs and his verbal explanations.

The s.p.a.ce covered by the houses and fallen walls was 125 feet from side to side, and at the central part the dwellings were thirty-five feet deep. The roof of the cave, or rather, the overhanging cliff, was at the highest point eighty feet above the floor. The houses were arranged in an arc of a circle so large as hardly to deviate from a straight line. The front row seems to have been of but one story, while the adjoining row back of it had two stories. The roof of the houses at no place reached the roof of the cave. Each room was about twelve feet square, and the walls, which showed no evidence of blocks or bricks, varied in thickness from fifteen inches at the base to seven inches at the top of the highest. At some places large stones were built into the walls; in another wall wooden posts and horizontal sticks or laths were found. The surface of the walls, which were protected against the weather, was smooth and even, and the interior walls showed seven or eight coatings of plaster. The floors, where they could be examined, were smoothly cemented and so hard as to effectively resist the spade. The pine poles which formed the roof were smooth, but not squared; they were three to four inches in diameter; and some of them were twenty-four feet long. According to all appearances, they had been hewn with a blunt instrument, as they were more hacked than cut. Many of them were nicely rounded off at the ends, and several inches from the ends a groove was cut all around the pole.

In the centre of the back rooms of the ground floor there was usually a pine pole, about ten inches in diameter, set up like a rude pillar. Resting on this and the side walls of the rooms in a slight curve was a similar pole, also rounded, and running parallel to the front of the houses; and crossing it from the front to the rear walls were laid similar poles or rafters about four inches in diameter. The ends of these were set directly into the walls, and covering them was a roofing of mud, some three inches thick, hard, and on the upper surface smooth. The second story, where it had not caved in, was covered in the same manner. None of the lower story rooms had an outlet to the apartments above, and the evidence tended to prove that the second story houses were reached from the bottom of the cave over the roofs of the front row of houses by means of ladders.

Most of the rooms were well supplied with apertures of the usual conventional form; sometimes there were as many as three in one room, each one large enough to serve as a door. But there were also several small circular openings, which to civilised man might appear to have served as exits for the smoke; but to the Indian the house, as everything else, is alive, and must have openings through which it can draw breath, as otherwise it would be choked. These holes were three or four inches in diameter, and many of them were blocked up and plastered over. A large number of what seemed to have been doorways were also found to be blocked up, no doubt from some ulterior religious reason.

A peculiar feature of the architecture was a hall not less than forty feet long, and from floor to rafters seven feet high. Six beams were used in the roof, laid between the north and south walls. There were rafters of two different lengths, being set in an angle of about ten degrees to each other. The west wall contained twelve pockets, doubtless the cavities in which the rafters had rested. They were, on an average, three inches in diameter, and ran in some six inches, slanting downward in the interior. The east wall was found to contain upright poles and horizontal slats, forming a framework for the building material. The interior was bare, with the exception of a ledge running along the southern side and made from the same material as the house walls. It was squared up in front and formed a convenient settee.

At the end of this hall, but in the upper story, was found a house that was distinguished from the others by a peculiar decoration in red, while the s.p.a.ce around the door was painted in a delicate shade of lavender.

There seems to have been still another hall of nearly the same length as the one described, but which must have been at least one foot and a half higher. It is now almost entirely caved in.

No objects of interest were found that could throw any light on the culture of the builders of these dwellings, except the fragment of a stone axe and a piece of matting.

The day after my arrival at Chuhuichupa I continued my journey, now accompanied by Mr. Taylor and Mr. Meeds. We had as a guide an old Mexican soldier, who had been recommended to us as a man who knew the Sierra Madre better than anyone else. He had, no doubt, lived a wild life; had taken part in many a "sc.r.a.p" with the Apaches, as his body showed marks of bullets in several places, and he had prospected for gold and silver, traversing a good deal of ground in the mountains at one time or another. But topographical knowledge _per se_ does not necessarily make a good guide. Although "Don Teodoro," by something like instinct, always knew where he was, it did not take us long to discover that he had not judgment enough to guide a pack-train, and his fatuous recklessness caused us a good deal of annoyance, and even loss.

After leaving the gra.s.s-lands of Chuhuichupa, we pa.s.sed through extensive pine regions, full of arroyos and cordons, and it struck me how silent the forest was here. No animal life could be seen or heard. About ten miles south we caught sight of the Sierra de Candelaria, which suddenly loomed up in the southeast, while the Arroyo de Guaynopa yawned on our left. We slowly ascended a beautiful cordon running toward the southwest. The track we followed, our guide a.s.sured us, was _el camino de los antiguos_, but it probably was only an Apache trail. The cordon was rather narrow, and from time to time gave us sweeping views of the stupendous landscape in one direction or another, as the animals slowly made their way up and finally reached the summit. A grandly beautiful sight awaited us; we went a little out of our way to gain a promontory, which, our guide said, was designated "Punto Magnifico." It was at an elevation of 8,200 feet, and gave us certainly the most strikingly magnificent view of the Sierra Madre we yet had enjoyed.

An ocean of mountains spread out before and below us. In the midst of it, right in front of us, were imposing pine-clad mesas and two weathered pinnacles of reddish conglomerate, while further on there followed range after range, peak after peak; the most distant ones, toward the south, seeming at least as far as eighty miles away. The course of the rivers, as they flow deep down between the mountains, was pointed out to us. The princ.i.p.al one is the Arros River, which from the west embraces most of the mesas, and then, turning south, receives its tributaries, the Tutuhuaca and the Mulatos, the latter just behind a pinnacle. West of the Arros River stretches out the immense Mesa de los Apaches, once a stronghold of these marauders, reaching as far as the Rio Bonito. The plateau is also called "The Devil's Spine Mesa," after a high and very narrow ridge, which rises conspicuously from the mesa's western edge and runs in a northerly and southerly direction, like the edge of a gigantic saw. To our amazement, the guide here indicated to us where the camino real from Nacori pa.s.ses east over a gap in the "Devil's Spine" ridge, and then over several sharp b.u.t.tes that descend toward the mesa. An odd-looking mesa lay between Rio Bonito and Rio Satachi. Farthest to the west were the big hogbacks near Nacori, standing out ominously, like a perpetuated flash of lightning. The sun was nearing the horizon; the air was translucent, and the entire panorama steeped in a dusky blue.

Immediately below us, to our left, lay Guaynopa. The mountainside looked so steep that it seemed impossible for us to descend from where we were. But we already heard the voices of our muleteers singing out to the animals 1,000 feet below, and that reminded us that we also had better reach camp before darkness should overtake us. We descended 2,500 feet, and, leaving the pines behind, found ourselves in a warmer climate. It never snows here, according to our guide. That the precipitation took the shape of rain we learned when we were impeded by it for two days.

There were yet eighteen miles between us and the deserted mines of Guaynopa. It was a laborious journey over the hills, mostly ascent. Finally we came to a steep slope covered with oaks, along which there was a continuous descent toward Guaynopa. While zigzagging our way down, we caught sight of a large cave with houses and some white cone-shaped structures staring at us across an arroyo midway up the opposite side, which was at least two thousand feet deep. Through my field gla.s.ses I could make out very distinctly a group of houses of the usual pattern; and the large, white structures could without difficulty be recognised as granaries, similar to those observed in Cave Valley. It was my intention to go back and examine this cave more closely, as soon as I had found a camping place; but circ.u.mstances interfered. Several years later the cave was visited by Mr. G. P. Ramsey, to whom I owe the following brief description.

The cave is situated about twenty-five miles in a straight line south of the Mormon colony of Chuhuichupa. There are indications of a spring in the cave, and there is another one in the arroyo itself. The buildings are in a very bad condition, owing to the action of the elements and animals; but fifty-three rooms could be counted. They were located on a rocky terrace extending from the extreme right to the rear centre of the cave. This extreme right extended slightly beyond the overhanging cliff, and contained groups of two-storied houses. In the central part of the cave were a number of small structures, built of the same material and in a similar manner as those I described as granaries in Cave Valley. They were still in excellent condition, and, as will be seen at a glance, they are almost identical with the granaries used to the present day in some southern States of Mexico.

We continued our descent, and, having dropped altogether some 2,000 feet, at last found ourselves alongside some lonely and unattractive old adobe houses. They were built by the Spaniards and are reputed to have once been the smelter of the now abandoned silver mine of Guaynopa. Only the naked walls remain standing on a decline, which was too steep to give us sufficient camping ground. So we went still a little further, to the top of a hill near by, where we made a tolerably good camp.

This then was the famous locality of Guaynopa, credited with hiding such fabulous wealth. There was still another mine here of the same repute, called Tayopa, and both of them are said to have been worked once by the Jesuits, who before their expulsion from Mexico were in possession of nearly all the mines in the country. According to tradition, the Apaches killed everybody here, and the mines were forgotten until recent times, when ancient church records and other Spanish doc.u.ments revealed their existence. Several expeditions have been sent out, one, I believe, by the Government for the purpose of locating them; but being situated in the roughest and most inaccessible part of the Sierra Madre, they are still awaiting their rediscovery, unless, contrary to my knowledge, they have been found in recent years. There is no doubt that the country carries very rich silver ore, and we ourselves found specimens of that kind; but the region is so difficult of access that it probably would require too great a capital to work the mines.

There was now a plain track leading along the hillside down toward the Rio Aros, which is scarcely two miles off; but the country was so wild and rugged that the greatest care had to be exercised with the animals to prevent them from coming to grief. The path runs along the upper part of a steep slope, which from a perpendicular weathered cliff drops some 400 feet down into a gorge. As the declivity of the slope is about forty-five degrees, and the track in some places only about a foot wide, there is no saving it if an animal loses its foothold, or if its pack slips. All went well, however, until we reached a point where the track commenced to descend, when our villain of a guide tried to drive some burros back on the track, instead of leading each one carefully. The result was that one of the poor beasts tumbled down, making immense bounds, a hundred feet at a time, and, of course, was killed.

We had no difficulty in fording the Guaynopa Creek near its junction with the Aros River, and selected a camping place on a terrace 200 feet above it. The stream, which is the one that pa.s.ses the cave-dwellings, carries a good deal of limpid water, and there are abundant signs that at times it runs very high. The elevation of the ford, which is here about the same as that of Aros River, 3,400 feet, was the lowest point we reached in our crossing of the Sierra Madre between Chuhuichupa and Temosachic. It took us almost the entire day to move the animals the one mile and a half to this camp. On the way we had found some good quartz crystals in the baryte, about four inches high and one inch in width.

The country before us looked more forbidding than ever, as if it did not want us to penetrate any further into its mysteries, but our guide seemed to be quite at home here.

Our march toward Rio Chico was about thirty miles of ups and downs, ascending to a height of 7,600 feet and descending again some 3,000 feet. In the beginning it was almost impossible to make out the track; where it did not lead over bare rocks, it was nearly obliterated by overgrown gra.s.s. The first ascent was over a mile long in a straight line; then, after a little while, came the most arduous climbing I had until then ever attempted. Following the slope of the mountain, the track rose higher and higher in long zigzags, without any chance for the animals to rest, for at least three-quarters of a mile. It was necessary to push them on, as otherwise the train would unavoidably have upset, and one or the other have rolled down the declivity. One large white mule, El Chino, after it had almost climbed to the top, turned giddy at the "glory-crowned height" it had reached, and, sinking on its hind legs, fell backward and rolled heels over head down, with its two large canvas-covered boxes, like a big wheel. As luck would have it, it b.u.mped against a low-stemmed old oak that cropped out of the hillside in an obtuse angle to it, some ninety feet below. Making one more turn up the stem, the mule was nicely caught between the forked branches, which broke the momentum, loosened the cargo, and caused the animal to fall back into the high gra.s.s. One box landed close by, the other, containing our library, pursued its course downward 200 feet further, bursting open on the way and scattering the wisdom of the ages to the winds, while the mule escaped without a scratch.

The burros came into camp three hours after us, and the drivers explained how they had succeeded in bringing them up the long slope only by constantly punching them to prevent them from "falling asleep."

As we continued our journey toward Rio Chico the panorama of the sierra changed continuously. We got a side view of the big Mesa de los Apaches, and many weathered pinnacles of eroded conglomerate were seen standing out like church spires in this desert of rock, varying in colour from red to lead gray. Once we caught sight of a stretch of the Rio Aros deep down in a narrow, desolate valley, some 3,000 feet below us. The geological formation of the region is mostly volcanic; then follows conglomerate, and on the high points porphyry appears.

We camped on the crest of the eastern side of the Rio Chico Canon, in an ideal place with bracing air. A fine, sloping meadow afforded quite an arcadian view with the animals peacefully grazing and resting; but looking westward, the eye revelled in the grand panorama of the sierra. The two sides of the Rio Chico Valley rise here evenly from the bottom of the gorge so as to suggest the letter V. In many places its brow is overhung by precipitous cliffs, and further down still more steeply walled chasms yawn up from the river bed.

My chief packer now became ill from the effects of poison ivy. He was one of those unfortunate individuals who are specially susceptible to it. According to his own statement it sufficed for him to pa.s.s anywhere near the plant, even without touching it, to become afflicted with the disease. In this case he did not even know where he had contracted it, until the cook showed him some specimens of the plant near an oak tree close by the kitchen tent. The poor fellow's lips were badly swollen; he had acute pains in his eyes, and felt unable to move. Sometimes, he said, the disease would last ten days, and his skin become so tender that he could not endure the weight or contact of his clothes. But by applying to the afflicted parts of his body a solution of baking soda in water, I was able not only to relieve his suffering, but to enable him, after two days, to continue with us on our journey.

In the meantime we had investigated some caves in the conglomerate of the steep canon side, about 250 feet above the bottom of the gorge, and rather difficult of access. The house group occupied the entire width of a cave, which was eighty feet across, and there was a foundation wall made of stone and timber underneath the front part. The walls were made of stone, with mortar of disintegrated rock that lined parts of the cave and were plastered inside and out with the same material. Lintels of wood were seen in the windows, and rows of sticks standing in a perpendicular position were found in two of the walls inside of the plastering. On one side of the cave, some two feet off, was a small tower, also in ruins, measuring inside four feet in diameter, while the walls were about six inches thick.

Pinnacles of eroded conglomerate are a prominent characteristic of the landscape west of the Rio Chico; further on, the usual volcanic formation appears again. After fully twenty miles of travel we found ourselves again in pine forests and at an alt.i.tude of 7,400 feet. Here we were overtaken, in the middle of February, by a rain and sleet storm, which was quite severe, although we were sheltered by tall pine trees in a little valley. It turned to snow and grew very cold, and then the storm was over. Here a t.i.tmouse and a woodp.e.c.k.e.r were shot, and the bluebirds were singing in the snow.

Travelling again eleven miles further brought us to the plains of Naverachic, where we camped. It was quite a treat to travel again on comparatively level land, but, strange to say, I felt the cold so much that I had to walk on foot a good deal in order to keep warm. The word Naverachic is of Tarahumare origin; nave means "move," and rachi refers to the disintegrated trachyte formation in the caves.

We had just emerged from a district which at that time was traversed by few people; perhaps only by some illiterate Mexican adventurers, though it had once been settled by a thrifty people whose stage of culture was that of the Pueblo Indians of to-day, and who had vanished, n.o.body knows how many centuries ago. Over it all hovered a distinct atmosphere of antiquity and the solemnity of a graveyard.

Chapter VI

Fossils, and One Way of Utilising Them--Temosachic--The First Tarahumares--Ploughs with Wooden Shares--Visit to the Southern Pimas--Aboriginal Hat Factories--Pinos Altos--The Waterfall near Jesus Maria--An Adventure with Ladrones.

About thirty miles from the village of Temosachic (in the Tarahumare tongue Remosachic means Stone Heap) we entered the plain of Yepomera, and came upon an entirely different formation, limestone appearing in an almost horizontal layer some thirty feet deep. In this bed the Mexicans frequently find fossils, and at one place four large fossil bones have been utilised as the corner posts of a corral or inclosure. We were told that teeth and bones were accidentally found at a depth of from twenty to thirty feet and some bones were crystallised inside. This formation, which stretches itself out toward the east of Temosachic, but lies mainly to the north of this place, has an extent of about fifteen miles from north to south, and from three to four miles from east to west.

Fossils picked up by Mr. Meeds in the cutting of a creek near Yepomera consisted of some fragmentary teeth and pieces of bones from some small animal. They were found in the hard clay that underlies the lime-stone. Large fossil bones also are said to have been gathered near the town of Guerrero, Chihuahua, quite recently. It seems to be a custom with the common people to make a concoction of these "giants' bones" as a strengthening medicine; we heard of a woman who, being weak after childbirth, used it as an invigorating tonic.

Here in Temosachic we were joined by Mr. Hartman, who had brought part of our baggage from San Diego by wagon in order to enable us to travel as unenc.u.mbered as possible.

From now on, until as far as the southern border of the State of Chihuahua, the country is occupied by the large Indian tribe of the Tarahumares. They are now confined to the Sierra Madre, but in former times they also occupied the entire plain of Chihuahua, as far west as the present capital of that State, and in a narrow strip they may have reached as far as 100 miles north of Temosachic. They were the main tribe found in possession of the vast country which is now the State of Chihuahua, and although there are still some 25,000 left, the greater part of them have become Mexicanised, adopting the language and the customs of the whites, together with their dress and religion. Father Ribas, in the seventeenth century, speaks of them as very docile and easily converted to Christianity.

The high plateau of the Sierra Madre for a couple of hundred miles southward is not difficult to follow. Most of it is hilly and clad in oaks and pines; but there are also extensive tracts of fine arable land, partly under cultivation, and fairly good tracks connect the solitary villages and ranches scattered over the district. The country of the aborigines has been invaded and most of the descendants of the former sovereigns of the realm have been reduced to earning a precarious living by working for the white and mixed-breed usurpers on their ranches or in their mines. The native language, religious customs, and dress are being modified gradually in accordance with the new regime. Only in the less desirable localities have the Tarahumares been able to hold their own against the conquerors.

There is not much interest attached to the study of half-civilised natives, but the first pure-blooded Tarahumares I met on their little ranch about ten miles south of Temosachic were distinctly Indian and very different from the ordinary Mexican family. There was a kind of n.o.ble bearing and reserve about them which even the long contact with condescending whites and half-breeds had not been able to destroy. The father of the family, who, by the way, was very deaf, was a man of some importance among the native ranchers here. When I approached the house, mother and daughter were combing each other's hair, and did not allow themselves to be disturbed by my arrival. The younger woman wore her long glossy tresses plaited in Mexican fashion. She evidently was in robust health and had well-moulded, shapely arms and an attractive face, with an eagle nose. She was beautiful, but I could not help thinking how much better she would have looked in her native costume.

On the road we had several times overtaken donkey-trains carrying corn to the mines of Pinos Altos. In the small Rio Verde we caught three kinds of fish: suckers, catfish, and Gila trout, which grow from one to three feet long, and, according to Tarahumare belief, change into otters when they are old.

The name of the village of Tosanachic is a Spanish corruption of the Tarahumare Rosanachic, which means "Where there is White," and alludes to a number of white rocks or cliffs of solidified volcanic ash, which rise to a height of some fifty feet and give to the little valley quite a striking appearance. There are caves in these rocks, and three poor families of Pima Indians lived in some of them.

In the village we noticed the first Tarahumare plough, the share of which was made of a section of oak. In its general appearance it is an imitation of the ordinary Mexican plough, in other words, is simply a tree stem with a branch as a handle. But, however primitive in design and construction, the civilised man's implement always has an iron share. Of course, such among the Tarahumares as can afford iron shares, never fail to get them; but in several parts of their country ploughs made entirely of wood, that is to say, ploughs with wooden shares, are seen. The foremost part of such a plough is cut to a point, and into a groove made for the purpose a section of tough oak is inserted, to serve as a share. It is held in place by the tapering of the groove, and some wedges or plugs. The share has naturally to be renewed quite frequently, but it serves its purpose where the ground is not stony. Later on, in Cusarare, Nararachic and other places, I found ploughshares of stone applied in the same manner as were the wooden ones.

Here at an elevation of 7,600 feet, and at the end of February, I saw the first flowers of the year, some very fresh-looking yellow _Ranunculus_. On crossing the ridge to Piedras Azules, sixty-odd miles south of Temosachic, a decided change of climate and vegetation was noticeable. I found another kind of _Ranunculus_, as well as various other flowers, and as we pa.s.sed through a small but gorgeous canon, with the sun shining against us through the fresh leaves of the trees, everything in Nature made the impression of spring. All was green except the ground, which was gray. The road was stony, and bad for the feet of the animals; altogether the country presented a new aspect with its small volcanic hills, many of them forming cones.

A few Indian hamlets surrounded by peach trees in full bloom were found here. The Indians here are Pimas, who, in their general characteristics, resemble the Tarahumare, although they impress you as being less timid and suspicious, and more energetic, perhaps also more intelligent, than the latter. We had no difficulty in taking some photographs. Among those who agreed to have their pictures taken was a dignified, courteous old man, who thought he was a hundred years old, but was probably only eighty. He showed me some scars on his body, which were a souvenir from a fight he once had with a bear.

In order to see more of the Southern Pimas I went to the near-by village of Yepachic, which I think is also a Tarahumare name, yepa meaning snow. There are, however, more Mexicans than Pimas in the village, and the presidente was a half-caste Tarahumare; he was once a shepherd, but had made money by trading mescal to the natives--six bottles for a cow.

Although the Pimas whom I visited in the neighbourhood, were very reserved, and even more Indian-like than the Tarahumares I had seen so far, still in their dress they showed more traces of advancing civilisation than the latter tribe. Everything here betrays the nearness of the mines, with the characteristic accompaniment of cheap clothes, cheap, tawdry jewelry, and a slight influx of iron cooking utensils. The Pimas, like the Tarahumares, use pine cones for combs; and we picked up several discarded ones near their houses.

I went still fifteen miles further northward, but found that most of the Indians there had gone to the Pinos Altos mines to look for work. That "March comes in like a lion" I realised even here in the sierra, when, on this excursion, on which I had not taken my tent along, I was overtaken by a snow-storm. We had gone to bed with the stars for a canopy, clear and beautiful; we woke up under blankets of snow, which turned to rain, drenching us to the skin and making us shiver with cold.