Chapter XXVI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Coras are not good runners; they have neither speed nor endurance, and they run heavily. It is astonishing how small the bones of their limbs are, especially among the females, though this, by the way, is the case with all the Indians I have visited. A Cora woman made for me a shirt as an ethnological specimen, which I thought she must have made too small at the wrist-bands, as they measured about 4¾ inches (barely twelve centimetres); but she showed me how well they fitted her. Still they always have well-developed hips and better figures than the Mexican women. The teeth of the Coras are not always perfect; I have seen several individuals whose front teeth were missing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We may live without poetry, music, and art;

We may live without conscience and live without heart;

We may live without friends, we may live without books,

But civilised man cannot live without cooks.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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