The Tarahumare never does anything without due deliberation; therefore he may, for quarter of an our, discuss with his wife the possible purport of the visit, before he goes out to see the man. They peep through the cracks in the wall at him, and if they happen to be eating or doing anything, they may keep the visitor waiting for half an hour. Finally the host shakes out the blanket on which he has been sitting, throws it around himself, and, casting a rapid glance to the right and left as he passes through the door, goes to take a seat a few yards distant from the caller. After some meditation on either side, the conversation, as in more civilised society, opens with remarks about the weather and the prospects for rain. When this subject is exhausted, and the host’s curiosity as to where the man came from, what he is doing, and where he is going to, is satisfied, the former may go back to the house and fetch some pinole and meat for the traveller. The object of the visit not infrequently is an invitation to take part in some game or foot-race; and as the men are sure to remain undisturbed, they generally reach some understanding. A friend of the family is, of course, finally invited to enter the house, and the customary salutation is “Assagá!” (“Sit down!”) In this connection it may be noted that the Tarahumares in conversation look sidewise, or even turn their backs toward the person they speak to.

After having eaten, the guest will carefully return every vessel in which food was given to him, and when he rises he hands back the skin on which he was seated. Should occasion require, the host will say: “It is getting late, and you cannot return to your home to-night. Where are you going to sleep? There is a good cave over yonder.” With this he may indicate where the visitor may remain over night. He will also tell him where he may find wood for the fire, and he will bring him food; but not unless the weather is very tempestuous will he invite an outsider to sleep in the house.

When at home the Tarahumare keeps regular hours, rising and retiring with the sun. Having slept on a skin on the floor, rolled up in his blanket, without anything for a pillow except perhaps a stone or a chunk of wood, he sits for a while near the fire, which is kept up most of the year at night in the house or cave. His wife brings him his breakfast of pinole. While combing out his long black hair with a pine cone, he may ask the boys and girls whether they have attended to the traps he told them to set on the night before. They run out and soon they come in with some mice. “Here they are,” they say, “but they are very poor!” The father, however, may consider them fat and nice, and the mother affably adds: “Of course, they are fat, since they have eaten so much corn.” They go about to roast them, while the husband looks on. Generally the Tarahumares have a number of traps set to catch mice. They are so fond of this “game” that, when civilised, they have been known to ask permission from Mexican acquaintances to go through their houses to hunt for them. The mice are skinned and threaded on a thin stick, which is stuck through their necks and serves as a spit.

Having enjoyed the dainty morsel thus set before him, the husband now tells his wife what he is going to do to-day. He will run deer or hunt squirrels, and accordingly takes his bow and arrows or his axe with him. In spring-time he may go to the field. The wife also tells of her plans for the day. The work that engages most of the time of the housewives in Mexico is the grinding of the corn, on the metate, for corn-cakes; and if she has any time to spare she boils beans, looks for herbs, or works on her weaving-frame; but she never sits about idle. She looks as conscientiously after her duties as any white woman; she has always something to do, and many things to take care of in her small way.

About sunset the husband returns, bringing a squirrel or rabbit, which he carries concealed in his blanket, that no neighbour may see it and expect an invitation to help to eat it. As he goes and comes he never salutes his wife or children. He enters in silence and takes his seat near the fire. The animal he caught he throws toward her where she is kneeling before the metate, so that it falls on her skirt. She ejaculates “Sssssssssss!” in approval and admiration, and, picking it up, praises its good points extravagantly: “What a big mouth! What large claws!” etc. He tells her how hard he worked to get that squirrel, how it had run up the tree, and he had to cut down that tree, till finally the dog caught it. “The dog is beginning to be very good at hunting,” he says. “And now I am very tired.” She spreads before him a generous supper of beans, herbs, and maize porridge, which she has ready for him. And while he eats she goes industriously to work removing the fur from the game, but leaving on the skin, not only because it keeps the meat together while it is boiling, but mainly because she thinks there is a good deal of nourishment in it, which it would be a shame to waste.

When the man is at home, and neither sleeping nor eating, he may sit down and make a bow or some arrows; or, stretched out on his back, he may resort to his favourite amusement, playing his home-made violin. Like all Indians of Mexico, the Tarahumares are fond of music and have a good ear for it. When the Spaniards first came, they found no musical instruments among the Tarahumares except the short reed flute, so common to many Mexican tribes, the shaman’s rattle, and the rasping stick. But they soon introduced the violin and even the guitar, and throughout Mexico the Indians now make these instruments themselves, using pine wood and other indigenous material in their construction, sometimes with remarkable skill and ingenuity, and for glue the juice of a certain lily root. Having no idea of the value of money, they frequently sell a tolerably good instrument for fifty or even twenty-five cents.

Toward evening the Tarahumare father of a family gets more talkative and chats with his wife, and then

“The day is done, and the darkness

Drops from the wings of night

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.”

And as the shadows deepen, he wraps himself closer in his blanket, and before he knows it childlike slumber enfolds him. Frequently he grows hungry in the middle of the night, and reaches out for food, as well as for his violin, devoting himself to music for half an hour, before he drops off to sleep again.

There are more women in the tribe than men, and they are looked upon as of less importance. There is a saying among the people that one man is as good as five women. Her prayers are not of as much value as his, because she prays only to the moon, and her deity is not as big as his, the sun. For this reason her place is behind the man in all dances. Yet she occupies a comparatively high position in the family, and no bargain is ever concluded until the husband has consulted his wife in the matter. I am bound to say, however, that on such occasions every member of the household, even the youngest and smallest child, is asked to give an opinion, and, if one of the little tots objects, the sale will not be closed. In such cases there is nothing for the customer to do but to try to influence the young business man who raised the objection, not directly, but through his parents. This accounts for a good deal of the frightful loss of time incurred in dealing with these Indians. The purchase of a sheep may require two days, and the negotiations concerning an ox may extend over an entire week.

That a woman of intelligence and character is appreciated even among barbarians is proven by the fact that once a woman was made gobernador, or chief, because “she knew more than men.” She did not assume the title, but she is said to have ruled with more wisdom and justice than many of her predecessors and successors.

Husband and wife never show their affection in public except when drunk. Parents kiss their little ones on the mouth and on the stomach, and the youngsters express their love for each other in the same way. On some occasions I have seen lovers sitting closely together, she holding on to his forefinger. The women are of a jealous disposition.

The Tarahumare standard of beauty is not in accordance with the classic ideal as we perceive it, nor is it altogether in conformity with modern views on the subject. Large, fat thighs are the first requisite, and a good-looking person is called “a beautiful thigh.” Erect carriage is another essential to beauty. In the face, the eyes attract more notice than any other feature, and the most admired ones are “the eyes like those of a mouse.” This is the highest praise that can be bestowed upon anyone’s personal appearance. They all like straight hair, and consider hair very ugly when it has a curl at the end. I once asked a bright young Tarahumare how the man must look who is most admired by women, whether his mouth and nose should be large or small, etc., and he replied, “They must be similar to mine!” Aside from good looks, the women like best men who work well, just as in civilised countries a woman may look out for a good parti.

But wealth does not make the possessor more attractive to the girls. In Nararachic was an elderly man who owned forty head of cattle and eighteen horses. When he became a widower, he had to live with an elderly woman of bad reputation, as he could not get another woman to marry him.

The young women enjoy absolute liberty, except as regards Mexicans, against whom they are always warned. They are told that they become sick from contact with such men. Never are they forced to contract what would turn out to be a loveless marriage. A beautiful Indian girl was much sought for by a Mexican. He spoke the Tarahumare language very well, and offered to give her a good house and fine clothes and a whole handful of silver dollars. Her brother, who was half civilised, and therefore more corrupt than the ordinary Indian, also tried to persuade her to accept the rich suitor. But she tossed up her head and exclaimed, “Tshíne awláma gátsha negālé” which, freely translated, means: “I do not like that fellow; love goes where it chooses.”

The custom of the country requires the girl to do all the courting. She is just as bashful as the young swain whom she wishes to fascinate, but she has to take the initiative in love affairs. The young people meet only at the feasts, and after she hag gotten mildly under the influence of the native beer that is liberally consumed by all, she tries to attract his attention by dancing before him in a clumsy way up and down on the same spot. But so bashful is she that she persistently keeps her back turned toward him. She may also sit down near him and pull his blanket and sing to him in a gentle low voice a simple love-song:

Se-(se)-ma-te re-hoy i-rú Se-(se)-ma-te re-hoy i-vá

Beau-ti-ful man to be sure, Beau-ti-ful man to be sure.

If occasion requires, the parents of the girl may say to the parents of the boy, “Our daughter wants to marry your son.” Then they send the girl to the boy’s home, that the young people may become acquainted. For two or three days, perhaps, they do not speak to each other, but finally she playfully begins to throw pebbles at him. If he does not return them, she understands that he does not care for her. If he throws them back at her, she knows that she has won him. She lets her blanket drop and runs off into the woods, and he is not long in following her.

Sometimes the boy, when he likes a girl very much, may make the first advances, but even then he has to wait until she throws the first pebbles and drops the blanket, for, among the Indians, it is the woman who seeks the man, and the fair who deserve the brave.

Next day they come home together, and after this they do not hide themselves any more. The parents of the girl are advised to make tesvino, as the young couple should not be separated any more, and word is sent out to a few friends and relatives to come to the wedding.

The guests arrive in the afternoon and most of the people remain outside of the house during the ceremony, but the bridegroom and his parents go inside, where they seat themselves on skins spread out on the floor. The mother of the girl has placed a large skin next to a big jar of tesvino, and on this the father of the boy sits down. As soon as he has taken his place, the host offers him three gourds full of the drink and requests him to accept the office of honour, the distribution of tesvino to all present, and he immediately enters upon his duties. He first gives four gourds full to the mother of the bride, as the mistress of the tesvino, and three gourds full to the host, the master; then four gourds full to his own wife. The bridal couple have been called in and told to sit down side by side, and all the rest of the people come in and stand around the pair. There is no special place assigned to anyone; but the father of the boy stands up and his mother sits down, while the girl’s father sits down and her mother stands up. The boy’s father now makes a speech, telling the bridal couple that they must remain together, and never separate nor fight. He specially tells the young man that he has to kill deer and take care always to bring some animal home to his wife, even if it be only a chipmunk or a mouse. He also has to plough and to sow corn and to raise crops, that he and she may always have enough to eat and not go hungry.

The father of the girl next takes the word, addressing himself mostly to the bride. Now that she is united to the man of her choice, she should always comply with her wifely duties. She must make blankets for her husband, and be industrious, make tesvino and iskiate, pinole, tortillas, gather herbs, etc., that her husband may always have something to eat and not go hungry. He names all the herbs singly. She must also help him, in her way, with the ploughing and sowing, so that he may raise plenty of corn to make tesvino that others may help him. She never must be lazy.

The father of the girl now gives tesvino to his future son-in-law, whose father in turn gives some to the bride. The bridal couple are covered with blankets, and in some cases his and her right hands are tied together. There is no other marriage ceremony. But all the guests partake of the liberally flowing bowl, and the festivities end in general and complete intoxication.

About two weeks later, the parents of the bridegroom make a feast exactly the same in character, but now the father of the girl occupies the seat of honour next to the big tesvino jar and acts as distributer. He also makes the first speech. The bridegroom gives to his brother-in-law a flint for striking fire, and six arrows. No matter how many brothers the bride has, they all get this present. It is considered an exchange for the girl. The shamans avail themselves of jus primæ noctis.

After the marriage the bridal couple separate, each staying in the old home for several weeks, after which the young man comes to live with his father-in-law for half a year or a year, until he has had time to make a house for himself. In the meantime the young couple are fed, but they receive nothing else. The young man has his own animals, which he got when he was small, and now his father gives him a piece of land.

Among the Christian Tarahumares the fiscal is advised of any contemplated marriage. This functionary has charge of the church edifice and the teaching of the children. It is his duty to take the young couples to the padre to be married. But the padre is far away and comes around only once a year, and sometimes even less frequently, and then the fiscal, so to say, rounds up all the matrimonially inclined. On account of their innate ardour to comply with all religious requirements the Tarahumares are willing to go through the ceremony, though to them it has no significance beyond the payment of one dollar. On this account they do not mind waiting for the padre’s blessing for a couple of years, until they get ready to part with the dollar, thereby generally saving an extra trip for baptising.

As the padre’s visits are so few and far between, the fiscal even considers it incumbent upon himself to make up matches on his own account, telling the people that when the padre comes they should be ready to get married. But so independent are the Tarahumare girls that it has happened that when the padre asks the portentous question, they cry, “Kæke, kæke” (“No, no”), and run away.

In my time there was a padre (now removed) who emulated the example of the shamans and was frequently in his cups. On one occasion he was unable to perform the marriage ceremonies, and the sacristan accompanying him had to take his place. All this man knew about the rite was to ask the man and the woman whether they would have each other. On hearing their “Yes” he would say, “Where is the dollar?” and pocketing it send the couple off with, “Now you are all right.”

When an addition is expected in the family the chief preparation of the woman is to get ready a quantity of beer, calling on her friends to help her, while the husband goes to look for the shaman. When she feels her time is approaching, she retires to some lonely spot, as she is too bashful to bear her child while others are about. She tightens her girdle around her waist, and bears her child sitting up, holding on to something above her, like the branch of a tree. After the little stranger has arrived the husband may bring her a jar with warm water from which she occasionally drinks. He also digs a hole, in which, after he has gone, she buries the placenta, placing stones on top of the place on account of the dogs. The umbilical cord is cut with a sharp reed or a sharp-edged piece of obsidian, but never with a knife, for in that case the child would become a murderer and could never be a shaman. I once asked a Tarahumare where he was born, expecting him to give me the name of some ranch; I was rather amused when he pointed to a big stone a little farther on along the slope. That was his birthplace.

The mother may lie down for that day, but the following morning she works as usual, as if nothing had been the matter with her. The husband does not work for three days, because he thinks his axe would break, or the horns of his ox would fall off, or he would break a leg. The third day he takes a bath.

When the baby is three days old the shaman comes to cure it. A big fire is made of corn-cobs, the little one is placed on a blanket, and with the father’s assistance the shaman carries it, if it is a boy, three times through the smoke to the four cardinal points, making the ceremonial circuit and finally raising it upward. This is done that the child may grow well and be successful in life, that is, in raising corn. Then the shaman takes a burning corn-cob from the fire and with the charred end makes three parallel lines lengthwise over the child’s head and three across them. He also sprinkles tesvino on the head and other vital parts of the body to make them strong, and cures the umbilical cord. He may, too, anoint the child with the fat of the rattlesnake mixed with herbs, and leave it in the sun, that the light may enter its heart. For his services the shaman gets a little maize, beans, salt, etc.

On the fourth day the mother goes down to the river to bathe, and while bathing leaves the little one naked, exposed to the sun for at least an hour, in spite of all its wailings, that Father Sun may see and know his new child. The baby is not washed until it is a year old. Then it is cured again, by the shaman, who on various occasions throughout its life repeats his curing, that the child may grow well and that no sickness or bad accidents may befall it. To protect it still further, pieces of palo hediondo or the chuchupate root, the strong smell of which is supposed to avail against disease, are wrapped in a piece of cloth and tied around the child’s neck.

The mother nurses the child until it is three years old. In some instances she begins to give it once in a while a little pinole when it is only six months old. When two years of age a child begins to walk and to talk. Sometimes when the mother is busy, for instance at the metate, and will not stop to nurse him, the little rascal may take a stick and in his way try to beat her.

The Tarahumare woman is a faithful mother, and takes good care of her children. She generally has from six to eight, often more. While small the children play with primitive dolls. They dress up corn-cobs with scraps of textiles and put them upright in the sand, saying that they are matachines and drunken women. They also play, like other children, with beans and acorns, or with young chickens with their legs tied together. Of course the youngsters maltreat these. Sometimes they play, too, with stuffed squirrels, but there are no special children’s games. The father makes bows and arrows for the boys, and instructs them in hunting and agricultural work. As the girls grow up, the mother teaches them how to spin yarn and weave blankets, “for,” she tells them, “otherwise they will become men.” She also warns them not to have children too rapidly in succession, for there is no one to carry them for her. Women cannot eat the tenderloin until they are very old, because if they did they could have no children. For the same reason they must not eat the pancreas. The women who fear lest they may have difficulty in giving birth to a child make soup of an opossum and eat it. Girls must not touch deer antlers, or their breasts would fall off.

A characteristic custom is that the children, no matter how old they get, and even after they are married and have families of their own, never help themselves to anything in the parents’ house. The mother has to give all the food, etc., and she gives as long as she has anything.

Parents never inflict corporal punishment upon the young people. If a boy does not behave himself, he gets scolded, and his father’s friends may also remonstrate with him at a feast. Otherwise, the children grow up entirely independent, and if angry a boy may even strike his father. A girl will never go so far, but when scolded will pout and weep and complain that she is unjustly treated. How different is this from the way in which, for instance, Chinese children treat their parents! It does not favour much the theory that the American Indians originally came from Asia.

Very common is it to see two young men amusing themselves with shooting-matches, shooting arrows at an arrow which has been shot out into the ground some fifty yards off as a mark. This arrow, as well as the game itself, is called in Mexican Spanish lechuguilla. In Tarahumare the game is called chogírali, and the target-arrow chogira. The arrow coming nearest the chogira counts one point; and if it comes within four fingers’ width of the aim, it counts four. The game is for twelve points. The distance is not measured from the points of the arrows, but from the winged parts, one man measuring for all. If a shot arrow strikes so as to form a cross with the chogira, it counts four. If it only touches the point of the latter in the ground it counts two. If two arrows happen to form crosses, neither counts.

Instead of arrows, three sticks may be employed. One is thrown out at a distance and is the chogira, and the other two sticks are thrown toward it, and count in a similar way as the arrows. Often while travelling, the Tarahumares play this game, in either form, as they go along the road, perhaps for the entire distance. Two and three pairs may play together.

There is also a game very similar to quoits, played with stone disks, fiat on one side and convex on the other. It is called rixiwátali (rixíwala = disk), and two and two play against each other. First one stone is moistened with spittle on one side to make it “heads or tails” and tossed up. The player who wins the toss plays first. Each has three stones, which are thrown toward a hole in the ground, perhaps twenty yards off. One of each party throws first, then goes to the hole and looks at it, while the other players make their throws. The stone falling nearest to the hole counts one point; if it falls into the hole, it counts four; if the stone of the second player falls on top of the first stone in the hole, it “kills” the first stone. The game is out at twelve. To measure distances, they break off small sticks. Lookers-on may stand around and bet which of the players will win. Another game is called tákwari, “to beat the ball”; in Spanish, palillo. It is played only by women. Two play at a time. One knocks a small wooden ball toward one goal, while her opponent tries to get it to another. This game is also played by the northern Tepehuane women, who sometimes use two short sticks tied together in the middle, instead of the ball. The sticks are thrown ahead from their places on the ground with a kind of quick, prying movement, with the aid of a longer stick.

Civilised Tarahumares, as well as the Mexicans, play with knuckle-bones as dice. The game is called la taba, and the bones are taken from either the deer, the sheep, or the goat. Only one bone is used by the two players. Twelve points make a game, and each player has twelve grains of corn with which he keeps count. He makes two rings in the sand, and puts his twelve grains in one ring, and as the game progresses he transfers them into the second ring until the game is out.

Their greatest gambling game, at which they may play even when tipsy, is quinze; in Tarahumare, romavóa. It is played with four sticks of equal length, called romálaka and inscribed with certain marks to indicate their value. Practically they serve the same purpose as dice, but they are thrown in a different way. The player grasps them in his left hand, levels their ends carefully, lifts his bundle, and strikes the ends against a flat or square little stone in front of him, from which they rebound toward his opponent. The sticks count in accordance with the way they fall. The point of the game is to pass through a figure outlined by small holes in the ground between the two players. The movements, of course, depend upon the points gained in throwing the sticks, and the count is kept by means of a little stone, which is placed in the respective hole after each throw. Many accidents may impede its progress; for instance, it may happen to be in the hole into which the adversary comes from the opposite direction. In this case he is “killed,” and he has to begin again from the starting-point. The advance is regulated by a number of ingenious by-laws, which make the game highly intellectual and entertaining. If he has the wherewithal to pay his losses, a Tarahumare may go on playing for a fortnight or a month, until he has lost everything he has in this world, except his wife and children; he draws the line at that. He scrupulously pays all his gambling debts.

The northern Tepehuanes also know this game, and play with sticks eighteen to twenty inches long. As these larger sticks fly quite a distance off when rebounding, the players sit rather far apart.

Wrestling also may be observed, but what may be termed the national sport, of which the Tarahumares are inordinately fond, is foot-racing, which goes on all the year round, even when the people are weakened from scarcity of food. The interest centres almost entirely in the betting that goes with it; in fact, it is only another way of gambling. It is called rālá hípa (“with the foot throw”), the word alluding to a ball used at the race.

No doubt the Tarahumares are the greatest runners in the world, not in regard to speed, but endurance. A Tarahumare will easily run 170 miles without stopping. When an Indian is sent out as a messenger, he goes along at a slow trot, running steadily and constantly. A man has been known to carry a letter in five days from Guazapares to Chihuahua and back, a distance of nearly 600 miles by the road. Even considering shortcuts, which he, no doubt, knew, it was quite a feat of endurance; for he must have lived, as the Indians always do while travelling, on pinole and water only.

Where the Indians serve the Mexicans they are often employed to run wild horses into the corral. It may take them two or three days, but they will bring them in, the horses thoroughly exhausted, while the men, who, of course, economise their strength, and sleep, and eat pinole, are comparatively fresh. In the same way they will run down a deer, following it for days through snow and rain, until the animal is cornered and easily shot with arrows, or until it is overtaken utterly jaded and its hoofs dropping off.

This propensity for running is so great that the name of the tribe alludes to it. Tarahumare is a Spanish corruption of ralámari, the meaning of which, though somewhat obscure, may doubtless best be given as “foot-runners,” because rālá certainly means “foot.”

The race is always between two localities, each side being represented by from four to twenty runners. The two parties show in their apparel some distinctive mark; for instance, all of one troop have red head-bands, while the others may wear white ones.

A peculiar feature is that the men toss along a small ball as they run, each party having one of their own. These balls are about two and a half inches in diameter and carved from the root of the oak. The foremost runner kicks it with the toes of his right foot, so as to make it bound along as far as 100 yards, and he and all the men behind him follow in the same trot as before. The first man reaching it again kicks it onward. It must never be touched by the hand, unless it happens to fall in some awkward place, as between stones or in a water-pool, when it is picked up and kicked on.

There is never any laid-out track, but the circuit is determined in a general way by crosses cut in trees. There are certain favourite places always used as race-courses. The runners seem to have a preference for the level tops of low ridges lying in a circle, wherever this is possible. If this is not feasible, they may run forward and back on a ridge, starting always near the middle, from some little plane or other convenient place, where the people gather for the occasion.

There is a manager for each party, and the two arrange the time and place for the race to be held, also the number and length of the circuits to be made. A circuit may measure from three to twelve miles in extent, and when the circuits are short as many as twenty may be agreed upon. At one race-course near Carichic, the circuit is about fourteen miles long, and twelve circuits may be run here without stopping. Runners of equal ability are matched against each other, each side being, of course, anxious to secure the best. The managers take care of their men until the race comes off. The training consists mainly in abstinence from tesvino for two or five days before the event. When preparing for a big race the runners may practise; not that they need training in running, for that comes to them as naturally as swimming to the duck; but only that they practise kicking the ball and try the ground.

Much more important are the magical devices by means of which they endeavour to secure their own success and to defeat their opponents. A daring manager may go to a burial cave, taking two balls with him. He digs out a bone, preferably the tibia from the right leg, and sets it on the floor of the cave in which it has been found. In front of it he places a jar with tesvino and some vessels containing food. On either side of these he lays one of his balls, and in front of all he plants the cross. The food and the beer are the payment to the dead that he may help to win the race by weakening the adversaries.

As human bones are supposed to induce fatigue, some may be brought to the race-track and secreted there in such a way that the competing runners have to pass over the spot, while the manager’s own crew are advised of the danger, to avoid it. The man uses the utmost care not to touch the bones with his fingers, lest he should dry up; instead, he uses sticks in handling and carrying them.

Scores of remedies are brought to the scene, either to strengthen friends Or to weaken opponents. Certain herbs are thrown into the air or shaken before the runners to enervate them. Some enterprising Mexican may bring a white powder or similar substance, declaring that it is very efficacious, and get a Tarahumare to pay a high price for it. But whatever means are employed, one way or the other, there is always a counter-remedy to offset its effect. Specially potent is the blood of the turtle and the bat, stirred together, dried, and mixed with a little tobacco, which is then rolled into a cigar and smoked. Hikuli and the dried head of an eagle or a crow may be worn under the girdle as a protection.

The services of the shaman are indispensable for the foot-runners. He helps the manager, himself often a shaman, to rub the men with herbs and smooth stones to make them strong. He also makes passes over them to guard them against sorcery. On the day before the races he “cures” them. Food and remedies are placed on a blanket beneath the cross, together with many magical things. The herbs are very powerful and have to be tied up in bags of buckskin or cotton cloth, as otherwise they might break away. The water for the runners to drink is also placed underneath the cross, and candles are set on either side of the pile. The runners bring their balls and stand in a row around the cross. Then the shaman, taking his position in front of the latter, smokes incense of copal over them, and sings of the tail of the grey fox, and other songs. He also makes a speech, warning them not to accept pinole or water in other people’s houses. All their food and drink must come from their relatives as a guard against witchcraft and illness. The runners drink three times from the water and the strengthening remedies; then the principal runner leads the others in a ceremonial circuit around the cross, walking as many times around it as there are circuits to be run in the race. The men sleep near the cross, to watch the remedies on the blanket. With them they have some old man, for old men see even when they sleep, and watch against sorcery.

After the ceremony the shaman takes each runner aside and subjects him to a rigid examination in regard to his recent food and his relations with women. Fat, potatoes, eggs, and anything sweet are prohibited, because all these things make the men heavy; but rabbits, deer, rats, turkeys, and chaparral-cocks are wholesome, and such nourishment enables them to win.

An augury as to which side will win is also taken. Water is poured into a large wooden tray, and the two balls are started simultaneously and rolled through the water over the tray. The party whose ball first reaches the other end will surely win. This test is gone through as many times as there are to be circuits in the race.

A race is never won by natural means. The losers always say that they have been bewitched by the others. Once I was taking the temperature of some foot-runners before they started, and their opponents, seeing this, lost heart, thinking that I had made their contestants strong to win the race. Often one of the principal runners becomes disheartened, and may simulate illness and declare that their rivals have bewitched him. Then the whole affair may come to nothing and the race be declared off. There are stories about injurious herbs that have been given in pinole or water, and actually made some racers sick. It may even happen that some dishonest fellow will pay to the best runner of one party a cow if he lets the other party win. But, as a rule, everything goes on straightforwardly. No one will, however, wonder that there are six watchmen appointed by each side to guard the runners from any possible peradventure, and to see that everything goes on in a proper, formal way. Tipsy persons are not admitted, and women in a delicate condition are carefully kept away, as the runners become heavy even by touching such a woman’s blanket.

On the day of the race the forenoon is spent in making bets, the managers acting as stakeholders. These people, poor as they are, wager their bows and arrows, girdles, head-bands, clothes, blankets, beads, ari, balls of yarn, corn, and even sheep, goats, and cattle. The stakes of whatever nature are tied together—a blanket against so many balls of yarn, a stick of ari against so many arrows, etc. At big races the wagers may amount to considerable heaps of such articles, and the position of manager requires a man of decision and memory, for he has to carry all the bets in his head and makes no written record of them. The total value of the wagers may reach a thousand dollars, and what to the Indians are fortunes may change hands in accordance with the result of the race. One man on one occasion had $50 worth of property at stake.

The scene is one of great animation. As many as two hundred people may assemble, among them women and children. At the gathering-point, which is called in Tarahumare “the betting-place,” all the bets are made, and here the race is started and concluded. Here the managers also place a row of stones, one stone for each circuit to be run, and whenever a circuit is completed one stone is taken away. In this way the count is kept. The runners walk about wrapped in their blankets like the rest of the people. They have had nothing to eat all day but pinole and tepid water, and their legs have been rubbed with warm water in the morning by the managers.

When finally all the people have arranged their stakes the gobernador steps forward and makes a speech, in which he specially exhorts the runners not to throw the ball with their hands; if they do, they certainly will go to hell! He also warns them against cheating of any kind.