Unknown Mexico Part 16

The grey fox is considered an astute animal and is feared. If he pa.s.ses by a house in which there is a sick person, and calls three times, the patient will die. One of my Indian men related the following story: One night he and another man were sleeping in a house when he heard the grey fox whistle. At first he did not know what it was, and he said to his companion,

"Listen, what is that?" The other one said, "This is a very bad thing, very ugly." He was a man who knew something, and he said, "If this grey fox returns for two nights more and whistles outside of the house of our sick neighbour, that man will die." My informant did not believe this at the time; but the next night the grey fox returned and whistled very uncannily, and on the third night he did it again. And on the following morning a man came and asked the Indian to help him to bury the neighbour who had died during the night. They went to the house of the dead man, and "then," the narrator concluded, "I knew that the grey fox had said the truth, for the grey fox never tells a lie."

The grey fox and the rabbit in ancient times danced rutuburi.

The horned toad holds the world. It says: "Don't tread on me! I am the colour of the earth and I hold the world; therefore walk carefully, that you do not tread on me."

The master of the deer lives inside of the mountains, in the earth; therefore the Tarahumares place small quant.i.ties of corn and beans, or three arrows in a jar, on top of the highest mountain to buy the deer from the one below.

The brown ground squirrel (chipawiki), which lives among rocks and seldom ascends trees, is thought to become a serpent. This belief is also current among certain cla.s.ses of Mexicans. A Mexican told me that a man once smashed the head of a chipawiki in the hollow of a tree, and when he wanted to take his game out, he found that the rest of the animal had the body of a serpent. It cannot be used for sacrifices.

Rats become bats.

The owl is very bad. Whenever it comes to a house and screeches, somebody falls ill. If it calls three times, in three consecutive nights, the sick person will die. The owl is also very smart. It knows when the Tarahumare's blanket (in which he is wrapped when sleeping along the fire) is going to be burned. When the owl hoots near a home it says, "Chu-i, chu-i, chu-i,"--"dead, dead, dead." Owls are killed but not eaten.

The goat sucker makes darts through the air and calls down rain. It has two nice fat young, which the Tarahumares consider a great delicacy.

The crow is much in disfavour because it eats the corn. Only the young crows are eaten.

The large swifts (olamaka) are thought to be witches, who pierce the souls of people and eat them. They are used by the sorcerers, whom they obey like dogs. Once a woman was sitting in a corn-field watching it by the side of a fire, and making yarn, when a swift settled on her skirt. She told a girl to bring a large basket, with which she covered the bird up, caught it and had it for many years. Every night the bird flew away, and then returned in the morning. Once, when the woman was absent at a tesvino feast, the girl killed the bird and roasted it. She could not eat it, however, because it had such a bad smell, and the woman found it on her return in the basket, dead and roasted. The girl ran away and the racc.o.o.ns ate the corn the woman was watching.

The giant woodp.e.c.k.e.r during the wet season rises high up toward the sun; that is why he gets his tail burned.

When the Tarahumares handle any kind of fish they take care not to touch their hair, for fear that it may turn grey and they become old.

The rattlesnakes are the companions of the sorcerers and watch to meet them and then talk with them. A Mexican once killed a rattlesnake, and the Indian grew very angry and said that the snake had protected his house; now he had no one to guard it.

Large serpents, which only the shamans can see, are thought to live in the rivers. They have horns and very big eyes.

The dragon-fly has no song; it flies about without making a noise.

Tata Dios put sheep into the world; they are good animals because they give wool from which people can weave blankets, and their meat is good, and they do not weep when they are killed. But goats were put into the world by the Devil; their hair is of no use, their meat is bad, and they howl much when they are killed.

Chapter XVII

The Shamans or Wise Men of the Tribe--Healers and Priests in One--Disease Caused by Looks and Thoughts--Everybody and Everything has to be Cured--n.o.body Feels Well without His "Doctor"--Sorcery--The Powers of Evil are as Great as those of Good--Remarkable Cure for Snake-bite--Trepanning Among the Ancient Tarahumares.

Without his shaman the Tarahumare would feel lost, both in this life and after death. The shaman is his priest and physician. He performs all the ceremonies and conducts all the dances and feasts by which the G.o.ds are propitiated and evil is averted, doing all the singing, praying, and sacrificing. By this means, and by instructing the people what to do to make it rain and secure other benefits, he maintains good terms for them with their deities, who are jealous of man and bear him ill-will. He is also on the alert to keep those under his care from sorcery, illness, and other evil that may befall them. Even when asleep he watches and works just as if his body were awake. Though real illness is the exception with him, the Tarahumare believes that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, and for this reason he keeps his doctor busy curing him, not only to make his body strong to resist illness, but chiefly to ward off sorcery, the main source of trouble in the Indian's life. The demand for shamans is therefore great, but the supply is quite equal to it. For instance, in the little village of Nararachic and the neighbouring ranches, where there are about 180 households, twenty-five shamans are living, each of whom takes care of about twenty souls, though only about ten of them enjoy great reputation in the community.

Before a man is allowed to consider himself a shaman, he is examined by a "board" of recognised members of the profession, who pa.s.s upon his fitness to enter their ranks.

These priest-doctors have their specialties. Some sing only at rutuburi or yumari dances, others only at hikuli-feasts. A few of them do not sing at all, but are merely healers, although far the greater number also sing at the feasts. Those who make a specialty of the hikuli cult are considered the greatest healers. They all conscientiously fast and pray, complying with the demands of the G.o.ds, which impose restrictions and abstinence, and they are therefore called "righteous men" (owiruami). They are the wise men of the tribe; and as rain-makers, healers, and keepers of the heritage of tribal wisdom and traditions, their influence is powerful.

Their services are never rendered gratuitously; in fact, what with the payments they receive from singing at feasts and curing the sick, they generally manage to live better than the rest of the people. Whenever a shaman is hungry, he goes to the house of some of his well-to-do clients and cures the family, receiving all the food he wants in payment for his efforts, for what would become of the people if the shaman should die? The Devil would surely take them away at once. Therefore the best parts of the meat from the animal killed for the feast is given to the shamans, and they generally get all the tesvino they can hold. In winter time, when numerous feasts are being held, the shamans are nearly all the time under the influence of their native stimulants. Yet this does not seem to harm them, nor does it in the estimation of the people detract from the efficacy of their singing; the curing is no less potent, even though the doctor can hardly keep from falling all over his patient. It is always inc.u.mbent on the shamans to be peaceful, and they never fight at the feasts.

The singing shamans invariably have a primitive musical instrument, the rattle, with which they beat time to their singing and dancing. Ordinarily it is made from a gourd filled with pebbles and mounted on a short stick which serves as a handle. Another kind is made from coa.r.s.e shavings glued together. The latter variety is not infrequently decorated with daubs of red or some similar painting. Sometimes at the feast the shaman, even nowadays, may be seen wearing a head-dress made of the plumes of birds. Through the plumes the birds are thought to impart all that they know. Besides, the plumes are supposed to keep the wind from entering the shaman's body, and thus prevent him from falling ill.

When curing, the shamans may sometimes use rational means. There is in existence around Norogachic for instance, a kind of sweating-bath, made by placing in a hole in the ground, just large enough for a man to sit in, several hot stones, pouring water on them, and covering them up with branches of the fragrant mountain cedar. The steam pa.s.sing through the latter is credited with curative power.

The Indians know several excellent medicinal herbs. Palo amarillo is a kind of household remedy used extensively in every family. There are many other highly valued herbs and trees, some of which have a wonderfully refres.h.i.+ng and invigorating aromatic scent. Headache is cured by a green herb called pachoco, of which they smell until they begin to sneeze. To cure constipation they boil ari with a grain of salt, or they heat stones and pour water over them and sit over the steam.

Both the sacred little cactus called hikuli and the maguey have undoubtedly medicinal properties, but the administration of these remedies, especially of the former, is connected with so many rites and ceremonies that their therapeutic value becomes obscured. The curative power of tesvino is absolutely magical, and this is the remedy to which recourse is most commonly had. In administering it the shaman makes his customary pa.s.ses, and exhales over the patient to blow away the disease. He also dips a small cross into the liquor, and with the wetted end taps the sick man on the head, neck, shoulders, and back, and draws crosses over his arms. Finally the patient is given three spoonfuls of the liquor, while all the members of the family stand around and murmur approvingly, "Thank you, thank you." Occasionally tesvino is exclusively used for curing, with the aid of two small crosses, one of red Brazil wood, the other of white pine. If he chooses, a shaman may provoke illness as well as cure it, but he cannot cure the person he made ill.

When a shaman is asked to cure a person of any complaint, real or imaginary, his first move is to find the cause of the trouble. According to his opinion illness is brought on either by the wind or by sorcery. From the former kind of disease n.o.body dies, although the heart, the liver, or the head may be attacked; but the other kind is serious. Sorcerers may put snakes into the legs, and such animals as centipedes, toads, larvae, scorpions, or even small bears into the body of some unfortunate person, and these disturbers have to be drawn out at once or else they will eat the sick man's heart. The shaman therefore first feels the patient all over, to find if something--in other words, the disease-bringing animal--is moving underneath the skin. Illness may also result from small stones, or the spine of the nopal placed in the body by the same agency.

A person suspected of having been bewitched is told to hold his mouth open to the sun, that the shaman may see whether the evil entered the body through this aperture. People become bewitched at night through the openings of the body, and the shaman also examines the nostrils, ears, etc. It is also the shaman's business to find out who caused the trouble, and since he can see more than ordinary people he is able to track the offender.

Some people by their mere looks or thoughts are liable to make a. person ill. Such illness may be brought on in retaliation for some slight or offence, and may even result in death. The first thoughts of a person falling ill are: Whom have I offended? What have I taken that I should have left alone, and what have I kept that I should have given? Then the shaman may tell him to find the person to whom he had refused to give food, and the sick one and his wife go from house to house asking the people: "Was it you whom I refused food? Someone has made me ill, and I want him to make me well again." If he can find the person whom he had offended, and arrange matters with him, he will recover.

The doctor may find that the person's heart is on the wrong side, and prescribe a liberal allowance of tesvino to get it back to its proper place. But generally the skill of the shaman is taxed more severely and he resorts to the more direct and powerful methods of magic. A common occurrence is that of illness caused by maggots, which the shaman has to extract from the patient by means of a sucking-tube, a short piece of reed about three inches long, cut from a kind of reed different from that of the arrow-shaft. He places it on the afflicted spot, and after sucking vigorously for a minute or so empties from his mouth into his hand or into a corn-leaf, what purports to be the maggots. I never had an opportunity of examining closely the small white bits of something or other that he spit out, but they seemed to me to be tiny pieces of buckskin which the man had secreted in his mouth and which swelled up when saturated with saliva. To the shaman they represent maggots; that is, the embodiment Of the disease, and all the people firmly believe that they are maggots. The corn-leaf and its contents are buried; a cross is made on the ground over the spot and a ceremonial circuit run around it. When resting between operations, the shaman places his sucking-tube into a bowl of water in which some herbs are soaking.

The mode of curing, however, varies. A common way in use near Guachochic is to make the patient stand on all fours and bathe him well with water; then to place him on a blanket and carry him over a fire toward the cross and the four corners of the world. When put down on the ground again he lies or kneels on the blanket, and the shaman places his tube against the afflicted part and begins to suck forcibly, while the rest of the people stand around with sticks, ready to kill the disease so as to prevent it from returning and doing harm to others. Presently the shaman produces from his mouth a small stone, which he a.s.serts was the cause of the disease. While the people are furiously beating the air, he proceeds at once to bury it in the earth, or in the bottom of the river, into which he dives. He may suck out as many as eight stones, but generally contents himself with four; and for treating a man in this way he receives four almuds of maize.

On one occasion, when I had taken a little cold, I asked a shaman friend whether he could cure me. "Certainly I can," was the confident reply. He took from a little basket, in which he kept his hikuli or sacred cacti and probably similar valuables, three black stones and said that he would sell one of these to me; if I put it into warm water it would cure me. This was not quite to my liking, as I wanted him to perform the magical feat of sucking maggots out of the skin. He complied with my request, and told me to go ahead to my camp, whither he would follow me soon. On his arrival I offered him some food, as my case was not urgent, but he declined, and proceeded to cure me. A saddle blanket was spread out for me to kneel on, and my Mexican and Indian attendants were told to retire, while he made his examination. Having ascertained that I had a headache, he took my head between his dirty hands, pressed it, applied his lips to my right ear, and commenced to suck very energetically. This was rather trying to my nerves, though not unendurably so. Presently he let go his hold, and spit out quite a lot of blood into a cup an Indian boy was holding out to him. He repeated the operation on my left ear with the same result. "More pain?" he asked. "Yes," I said, "in my right hand." He immediately grabbed that member in his mouth, biting almost through the skin over the pulse, and after having sucked for a little while, deposited contents, of a similar nature, into the cup from his mouth. It was afterward found that the blood was mixed with a considerable number of gra.s.s seeds, which had been the cause of my illness. I had not known that I was so "seedy."

The curing is often performed at dances, during the night, as the family who give the feast expect to receive, in return for all their trouble and expense, the benefit of the shaman's magic powers, whether any of them are ill or not. Once a man, his wife, and his child had been cured with tesvino, but nevertheless they still anxiously looked to the shaman for more treatment, apparently feeling that they needed more strength against coining evil. The woman said: "Yesterday I fell into the water and got wet and felt ill, and in the night I dreamed that I was dead and that you cured me." To this the doctor replied, "Yes, that is why I came to cure you." Then, yielding to their beseeching glances, he daubed them again, this time holding their hands and with a little cross in his left hand. Then he said: "Now you need not be afraid; I have cured you well. Do not walk about any more like fools and do not get wet again." And they were content.

There is a shaman near Baqueachic (baka = bamboo reed) who has a great reputation for curing cattle, or rather for keeping them in health. Every year he makes a tour of the different ranches, and the Indians bring their animals to him to be treated. A large hole is dug in the ground and a fire kindled in it. Then some green branches of the mountain cedar and some copal are thrown in and burned, and the animals driven one by one through the smoke. Since the veterinary gets one animal for each ceremony, he becomes quite rich.

The shamans also undertake to cure the sun and the moon, because these, too, are often ill and have to be righted. Not a feast is held in which some spoonfuls from the jars containing the remedies are not thrown up for the benefit of the sun and the moon. Occasionally, however, special ceremonies have to be performed to cure the celestial bodies, particularly the moon, because from her all the stars receive their light. At the period of the dark moon she is considered to be sick and tied up by the Devil, and the world is sad. Then the shamans a.s.semble to consult about her ailment and the means of curing her. An ox may be killed and tesvino made. In killing the animal, care is taken not to injure the heart, which is treated with great ceremony. The people always avoid touching it, and at sacrifices they hang it with the lungs to a stick raised near the cross. The shamans stand near, with small earthenware dishes containing copal incense; while the oldest cuts with his knife four crosses on four diametrically opposite points of the heart, and from the upper part all but slices off a piece, which is left hanging down beside the main part. All the blood the heart contained is sacrificed to the four cardinal points with much singing. Then the shaman asks for an earthen bowl which has never been used before, and in this he places the heart and burns it without adding fat or anything else. The ashes he rubs between his fingers until reduced to a fine dust, which he mixes with water and some medicinal herbs. The shamans stand in the middle, and the people around them, and all are unanimous in their prayer that they may see the moon. Each shaman takes three spoonfuls of medicine, the rest of which is thrown on the cross, and the shamans watch all night.

The Christian Tarahumares even feel called upon to cure the church when those buried in and around it have been noisily dancing and damaging the building to make the people give them tesvino. The princ.i.p.al shaman heads the procession, carrying a jar of the liquor. His a.s.sistant holds in one hand a bowl containing water mixed with the crushed leaves of the maguey, and in the other some fresh maguey leaves. The tesvino, as well as the green water, is liberally thrown upon the walls and the floor of the church to lay the perturbed spirits.

How to cure smallpox is beyond the ken of the shamans, but they try to keep off the dread enemy by making fences of th.o.r.n.y branches of different trees across the paths leading to the houses; and snake-skins, the tail of the grey fox, and other powerful protectors or charms, are hung around the doors of their dwellings to frighten the disease away. The same purpose is accomplished through the pungent smell produced by burning in the house the horns of cows, sheep, and goats.

The shamans also profess to produce springs by sowing water. They make a hole one yard deep in the rocky ground. Water is brought in a gourd and poured into it, together with half an almud of salt. The hole is then covered up with earth, and after three years a spring forms.

High as the shamans stand in the estimation of the people, they are by no means exempt from the instability of mundane conditions, and the higher a man rises the less secure is his position. The power to see everything, to guard against evil, and to cure illness issues from the light of his heart, which was given him by Tata Dios. It enables him to see Tata Dios himself, to talk to him, to travel through s.p.a.ce at will, for the shamans are as bright as the sun. But all this supposed great power to do good may at any moment be turned to evil purposes. There are indeed some shamans whose kindly, sweet-tempered manners and gentle ways enable them to retain their good reputation to the end; but few go through life who can keep themselves always above suspicion, especially when they grow older; and innocent persons have on this account been cruelly persecuted. Such a fate is all the more liable to befall them on account of the recognised ability of a shaman to both cure and produce disease.

No doubt the great quant.i.ty of stimulants taken by shamans in the course of their career causes them to go periodically through a state of excitement, which, combined with the enthusiasm which they work themselves up to, gradually gives to these men, who frequently are richly endowed with animal magnetism, a supernatural appearance. Advancing years have their share in making such a man look odd and uncanny, not only on account of his grey hair, wrinkled face, and s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, but still more by his reserved bearing and distinctive personality. Women shamans, too, may turn bad and become witches.

Much as in cases of heresy among Christian ministers, the other shamans hold a consultation regarding a suspected colleague, and may decide that the light of his heart has failed him and that he is no longer one of them. From that time on, good people avoid him; they no longer give him food, and do not tolerate him about their homes; they are afraid of him; and the better a shaman he was before, the more terrible a sorcerer he is now supposed to have become. Soon every accident that happens in the locality is laid at the accused man's door.

There are, on the other hand, many evil-minded persons who pretend to possess supernatural powers to do harm, and accept payment for services of that kind; in short, who make it a business to be sorcerers. The power of the sorcerer to do evil is as great as the ability of the good shaman to cure it. The sorcerer may rasp on his notched stick, and sing death and destruction to a person or to attain his ends he may use hikuli, smooth stones, the corpse or the foreleg of some highly venerated animal and powerful rain-maker, as the toad, which is never killed except by bad persons. A terrible thing in the hands of a sorcerer is a humming-bird stripped of its feathers, dried, and wrapped in pochote wool. To the Tarahumares the brilliant little bird, often mentioned in their songs, is a good and mighty hero-G.o.d, but the sorcerer perverts his great power to his own evil purposes. The sorcerer is feared by all; pregnant women, especially, go out of his way, as he may hinder them from giving birth to their children. When Tarahumares see a shooting star they think it is a dead sorcerer coming to kill a man who did him harm in life, and they huddle together and scream with terror. When the star has pa.s.sed, they know that somewhere a man has been killed, and that now the sorcerer is taking out his heart.

If a man does any harm to a powerful sorcerer, the latter, after death, enters into a mountain lion or jaguar or bear, and watches by the wayside until the offender comes, when he kills him.

Sorcerers are also believed to prevent rain from falling, and therefore the people were once much pleased when they saw me photographing a sorcerer. The camera was considered a powerful rain-maker, and was thought to make the bad man clean. The people may chastise a man suspected of sorcery, to frighten him from doing further mischief. A sick person also is supposed to improve when the sorcerer who made him ill is punished; but if accidents and misfortune continue to happen, the accused man may be killed. Such extreme measures have been resorted to even in recent years, though rarely.

The magical powers of a sorcerer are appalling. When a Tarahumare walks with a sorcerer in the forest and they meet a bear, the sorcerer may say: "Don't kill him; it is I; don't do him any harm!" or if an owl screeches at night, the sorcerer may say: "Don't you hear me? It is I who am calling."

The sorcerer dies a terrible death. Many dogs bark and run away and come back; they look like fire, but they are not; they are the evil thoughts of the sorcerer. The river, too, makes a greater noise as it flows, as if somebody were dipping up water and pouring it out again. Uncanny, weird noises come from every part of the house, and all the people in it are much frightened. Hardly anyone goes to talk to the dying man, and no one bids him good-bye. The Christian Tarahumares do not bury him in the churchyard with other people, but alone in a remote cave, and they bury all his things with him--his machete his axe, and heavy things that other people never take along, but which the sorcerer, because he is very powerful, can carry with him when he goes to heaven.

As we have seen, the medical education of the shamans is extremely limited. Their rational _materia medica_ is confined to the hikuli cactus and a few roots and plants. Aside from this they have a cure for snakebites which is really remarkable. The injured man kills the reptile, cuts out its liver and gall, and smears the latter over the wound; he may also eat a piece of the liver, but it must be taken from the animal that inflicted the injury; then he will be well again in three days. If people die of snake-bites, it is because the reptile escaped. The gall of a rattlesnake has a sickening smell; even my dogs were repulsed by it when I once killed a four-foot rattler. The method may be considered as in accord with the modern theory that the bile of many animals contains strong ant.i.toxins.