Unknown Mexico Part 27

Two traders from that town, who had been visiting Santa Teresa while I was there, had reported to the padre the presence of a mysterious gringo (American), who had a fine outfit of boxes and pack-mules, and who gave the Coras "precious jewellery" to buy their souls, and visited their dances. The padre, without having ever seen me, concluded that I was a travelling Protestant missionary, and one day after ma.s.s he warned the people against the bad Protestant who was on his way to corrupt their hearts and to disturb this valley in which there had always been peace. "Do not accept anything from him, not even his money; do not allow him to enter the church, and do not give him anything, not even a gla.s.s of water," he said. This padre, so I was told by reliable authority, made the judges at San Juan and at San Lucas punish men and women for offences that did not come under their jurisdiction. The men were put into prison, while the women had fastened to their ankles a heavy round board, which they had to drag wherever they went for a week or two. It caused them great difficulty in walking, and they could not kneel down at the metate with it.

His speeches about me made a deep impression upon the illiterate Mexicans in that remote part of the world, who in consequence of it looked upon me with suspicion and shunned me. Not knowing anything better, they invented all kinds of wild charges against me: I was surveying the lands for Porfirio Diaz, who wanted to sell the Cora country to the Americans; I appealed only to the Indians because they were more confiding and could be more easily led astray, my alleged aim being to make Freemasons out of them. A Freemason is the one thing of which these people have a superst.i.tious dread and horror. Even my letters of recommendation were doubted and considered spurious. However, one old man, whose wife I had cured, told me that Protestants are also Christians, and in his opinion I was even better than a Protestant. Fortunately, the Indians were less impressionable, and as their brethren in the sierra had not reported to them anything bad about me, they could see no harm in a man who did not cheat anyone and took an interest in their ancient customs and beliefs, while the padres had always made short work of their sacred ceremonial things, breaking and burning them.

When at last my messengers returned, after an absence of twelve days, I was surprised to note that they were accompanied by two gendarmes. The Commandant-General of the Territory of Tepic had not only been kind enough to cash my check for about $200, but had deemed it wise to send me the money under the protection of an escort, a precaution which I duly appreciated. As the return of the men was the only thing I had been waiting for, I now prepared to move up the river to the near-by pueblo of San Francisco, where the population is freer from Mexican influence.

When my hut was broken up, I found among my effects ten scorpions. The canon is noted for its mult.i.tude of scorpions, and I was told that a piece of land above San Juan Peyotan had to be abandoned on account of these creatures. The scorpion's sting is the most common complaint hereabout, and children frequently die from it, though not all kinds of scorpions are dangerous. The consensus of opinion is that the small whitish-yellow variety is the one most to be dreaded. The Cura of Santa Magdalena, State of Jalisco, a.s.sured me that he had known the sting of such scorpions to cause the death of full-grown people within two hours.

The scorpions of Mexico seem to have an unaccountable preference for certain localities, where they may be found in great numbers. In the city of Durango the hotels advertise, as an attraction, that there are no scorpions ill them. For a number of years, according to the munic.i.p.al records, something like 60,000 scorpions have been annually killed, the city paying one centavo for each. Some persons earn a dollar a night by this means. Yet some forty victims, mostly children, die every year there from scorpion-stings.

The cura quoted above thinks that there is a zone of scorpions extending from the mining-place of Bramador, near Talpa, Territory of Tepic, as far north as the city of Durango, though he could not outline its lateral extent. At Santa Magdalena the scorpions are not very dangerous.

Chapter XXIX

A Cordial Reception at San Francisco--Mexicans in the Employ of Indians --The Morning Star, the Great G.o.d of the Coras--The Beginning of the World--How the Rain-clouds were First Secured--The Rabbit and the Deer--Aphorisms of a Cora Shaman--An Eventful Night--Hunting for Skulls--My Progress Impeded by Padre's Ban--Final Start for the Huichol Country--A Threatened Desertion.

At the pueblo of San Francisco, prettily situated at the bend of a river, I was made very welcome. The Casa Real, another name for the building generally designated as La Comunidad, had been swept and looked clean and cool, and I accepted the invitation to lodge there. It was furnished with the unheard-of luxury of a bedstead, or rather the framework of one, made of a network of strong strips of hide. As the room was dark, I moved this contrivance out on the veranda, where I also stored my baggage, while my aparejos and saddles were put into the prison next door. Two Indians were appointed to sleep near by to guard me. When I objected to this I was informed that two fellows from Jesus Maria had been talking of killing me as the easiest way of carrying out the padre's orders. I felt quite at home among these friendly, well-meaning people, and paid off my men, who returned to their homes. I thought that whenever I decided to start out again, I could get men here to help me to reach the country of the Huichols. A shaman who knew more than all others was deputed to give me the information I wanted about the ancient beliefs and traditions of the Coras.

The people also agreed to let me see their mitote, which at this time of the year is given every Wednesday for five consecutive weeks in order to bring about the rainy season. The fourth of this year's series was to be on May 22d. As to burial-caves, they at first denied that there were any skulls in the neighbourhood, but finally consented to show me some. Later on, how-ever, an important shaman objected to this, strongly advising the people not to do so, because the dead helped to make the rain they were praying for, at least they could be induced not to interfere with the clouds.

A few Coras here were married to "neighbours," and some Cora women had taken "neighbours" for husbands. For the first time, and also the last, in all my travels, I had here the gratification of seeing impecunious Mexicans from other parts of the country at work in the fields for the Coras, who paid them the customary Mexican wages of twenty-five centavos a day. The real owners of the land for once maintained their proper position.

I saw hikuli cultivated near some of the houses in San Francisco. They were in blossom, producing beautiful large, white flowers. The plant is used at the mitotes, but not generally.

On both sides of the steep arroyo near San Francisco were a great number of ancient walls of loose stones, one above the other, a kind of fortification. In other localities, sometimes in places where one would least expect them, I found a number of circular figures formed by upright stones firmly embedded in the ground, in the same way as those described earlier in this narrative.

The pueblo, _mirabile dictu_, had a Huichol teacher, whom the authorities considered, and justly so, to be better than the ordinary Mexican teacher. He was one of nine boys whom the Bishop of Zacatecas, in 1879, while on a missionary tour in the Huichol country, had picked out to educate for the priesthood. After an adventurous career, which drove him out of his own country, he managed now to maintain himself here. Although his word could not be implicitly trusted, he helped me to get on with the Coras, and I am under some obligation to him.

A prominent feature in the elaborate ceremonies of the tribe, connected with the coming of age of boys and girls, is the drinking of home-made mescal. The lifting of the cochiste, as described among the Aztecs, is also practised, at least among the Coras of the sierra, and is always performed at full moon.

The people begin to marry when they are fifteen years old, and they may live to be a hundred. The arrangement of marriages by the parents of the boy without consulting him is a custom still largely followed. On five occasions, every eighth day, they go to ask for the bride they have selected. If she consents to marry the man, then all is right. One man of my acquaintance did not know his "affinity"

when his parents informed him that they had a bride for him. Three weeks later they were married, and, as in the fairy-tale, lived happily ever afterward. His parents and grandparents fasted before the wedding. In San Francisco I saw men and women who were married, or engaged to be married, bathing together in the river.

Fasting is also a notable feature in the religion of the Coras, and is considered essential for producing rain and good crops. Abstinence from drinking water for two days during droughts is sometimes observed. The princ.i.p.al men on such occasions may undertake to do the fasting for the rest of the people. They then shut themselves up in La Comunidad, sit down, smoke, and keep their eyes on the ground.

The Coras of the canon are not always in summer in accord with Father Sun, because he is fierce, producing sickness and killing men and animals. Chulavete, the Morning Star, who is the protecting genius of the Coras, has constantly to watch the Sun lest he should harm the people. In ancient times, when the Sun first appeared, the Morning Star, who is cool and disliked heat, shot him in the middle of the breast, just as he had journeyed nearly half across the sky. The Sun fell down on earth, but an old man brought him to life again, so that he could tramp back and make a fresh start.

The Morning Star is the princ.i.p.al great G.o.d of the Coras. In the small hours of the morning they frequently go to some spring and wash themselves by his light. He is their brother, a young Indian with bow and arrow, who intercedes with the other G.o.ds to help the people in their troubles. At their dances they first call him to be present, and tell their wants to him, that he may report them to the Sun and the Moon and the rest of the G.o.ds.

A pathetic story of the modern adventures of this their great hero-G.o.d graphically sets forth the Indian's conception of the condition in which he finds himself after the arrival of the white man. Chulavete was poor, and the rich people did not like him. But afterward they took to him, because they found that he was a nice man, and they asked him to come and eat with them. He went to their houses dressed like the "neighbours." But once when they invited him he came like an Indian boy, almost naked. He stopped outside of the house, and the host came out with a torch of pinewood to see who it was. He did not recognise Chulavete, and called out to him: "Get away, you Indian pig! What are you doing here?" And with his torch he burned stripes down the arms and legs of the shrinking Chulavete. Next day Chulavete received another invitation to eat with the "neighbours." This time he made himself into a big bearded fellow, with the complexion of a man half white, and he put on the clothes in which they knew him. He came on a good horse, had a nice blanket over his shoulder, wore a sombrero and a good sabre. They met him at the door and led him into the house.

"Here I am at your service, to see what I can do for you," he said to them.

"Oh, no!" they said. "We invited you because we like you, not because we want anything of you. Sit down and eat."

He sat down to the table, which was loaded with all the good things rich people eat. He put a roll of bread on his plate, and then began to make stripes with it on his arms and legs.

"Why do you do that?" they asked him. "We invited you to eat what we eat."

Chulavete replied: "You do not wish that my heart may eat, but my dress. Look here! Last night it was I who was outside of your door. The man who came to see me burned me with his pine torch, and said to me, 'You Indian pig, what do you want here?' "

"Was that you?" they asked.

"Yes, gentlemen, it was I who came then. As you did not give me anything yesterday, I see that you do not want to give the food to me, but to my clothes. Therefore, I had better give it to them." He took the chocolate and the coffee and poured it over himself as if it were water, and he broke the bread into pieces and rubbed it all over his dress. The sweetened rice, and boiled hen with rice, sweet atole, minced meat with chile, rice pudding, and beef soup, all this he poured over himself. The rich people were frightened and said that they had not recognised him.

"You burned me yesterday because I was an Indian," he said. "G.o.d put me in the world as an Indian. But you do not care for the Indians, because they are naked and ugly." He took the rest of the food, and smeared it over his saddle and his horse, and went away.

The Coras say they originated in the east, and were big people with broad and handsome faces and long hair. They then spoke another language, and there were no "neighbours." According to another tradition, the men came from the east and the women from the west.

In the beginning the earth was fiat and full of water, and therefore the corn rotted. The ancient people had to think and work and fast much to get the world in shape. The birds came together to see what they could do to bring about order in the world, so that it would be possible to plant corn. First they asked the red-headed vulture, the princ.i.p.al of all the birds, to set things right, but he said he could not. They sent for all the birds in the world, one after another, to induce them to perform the deed, but none would undertake it. At last came the bat, very old and much wrinkled. His hair and his beard were white with age, and there was plenty of dirt on his face, as he never bathes. He was supporting himself with a stick, because he was so old he could hardly walk. He also said that he was not equal to the task, but at last he agreed to try what he could do. That same night he darted violently through the air, cutting outlets for the waters; but he made the valleys so deep that it was impossible to walk about, and the princ.i.p.al men reproached him for this. "Then I will put everything back as it was before," he said.

"No, no!" they all said. "What we want is to make the slopes of a lower incline, and to leave some level land, and do not make all the country mountains."

This the bat did, and the princ.i.p.al men thanked him for it. Thus the world has remained up to this day.

No rain was falling, and the five princ.i.p.al men despatched the humming-bird to the place in the east where the rain-clouds are living, to ask them to come over here. The clouds came very fast and killed the humming-bird, and then returned to their home. After a while the humming-bird came to life, and told the princ.i.p.al men that the clouds had gone back. The people then sent out the frog with his five sons. As he proceeded toward the east he left one of his sons on each mountain. He called the clouds to come, and they followed and overtook him on the road. But he hid himself under a stone, and they pa.s.sed over him. Then the fifth son called them on, and when they overtook him he, too, hid himself under a stone. Then the fourth son called the clouds and hid, then the third son called, and then the second, and finally the first, who had been placed on a mountain from which the sea can be seen to the west of the sierra. When the storm-clouds went away again, the frogs began to sing merrily, which they do to this day after rain, and they still hide under stones when rain is coming to the Cora country.

The rabbit in olden times had hoofs like the deer, and the deer had claws. They met on the road and saluted each other as friends. Said the deer: "Listen, friend, lend me your sandals, to see how they feel. Only for a moment." The rabbit, who was afraid the deer would steal them, refused at first, but at last he agreed, and the deer, putting them on, rose and began to dance. "Oh, how beautifully it sounds!" he said. He danced five circuits, and began to dance mitote and sing. The rabbit sat looking on, and was in a dejected mood, fearing that the deer might not give him back his sandals. The deer then asked permission to run five big circuits over the mountains. The rabbit said no, but the deer went away, promising to come back directly. He returned four times, but on the fifth round he ran away. The rabbit climbed up on a mountain and saw the deer already far off. He wanted to follow him, but he could not, because his feet were bare. The deer never returned the hoofs to the rabbit, and hoofless the rabbit has remained to this day.

I had many interesting interviews with the old shaman whom the authorities had appointed to serve me. He confided to me that for many years he had faithfully fulfilled his office as the princ.i.p.al singing shaman of the community, but that the people had once suddenly accused him of practising sorcery and wanted to punish him. Being very intelligent and upright, he was of great a.s.sistance to me, and the more eager to do all he could for the grudge he bore his compatriots for accusing him of sorcery. No doubt he was glad of my coming, as it gave him a chance to rehabilitate himself, since, for the first time in three years, he had been engaged to sing at the dance. Be this as it may, I obtained much valuable information from him. He could elucidate the trend of Indian thought better than any shaman I had hitherto met, and his talk was full of aphorisms and opinions with reference to Indian views of life.

Referring to the many regulations and observances the Indians have to comply with in order to insure food, health, and life, he said: "A man has to do a good deal to live. Every tortilla we eat is the result of our work. If we do not work, it does not rain." That the "work" consists in fasting, praying, and dancing does not detract from its hards.h.i.+p.

Other sayings I picked up are as follows:

We do not know how many G.o.ds there are.

The Moon is man and woman combined; men see in her a woman, women see a man.

It is better to give a wife to your son before he opens his eyes very much; if not, he will not know whom he wants.

Illness is like a person; it hears.

Everything is alive; there is nothing dead in the world. The people say the dead are dead; but they are very much alive.

My friend went with me in the afternoon to the place where the mitote was to be given. As the preparations of the princ.i.p.al men consume two days, and I was bent on seeing everything, I went to the place the day before the dance was to come off. It was a few miles away in a remote locality, on top of a hill the upper part of which was composed mainly of huge stones, some of them as regular in shape as if they had been chiselled. Here and there in the few open s.p.a.ces some shrubbery grew. An opening in the midst of the great ma.s.s of stones had been prepared to serve as a dancing-place. The big stones looked dead enough, but to the Indians they are alive. They are what the Coras call Taquats or ancient people. Once upon a time they went to a mitote, just as we were doing now, when the morning star arose before they arrived at their destination, and all were changed into stone, and ever since have appeared like stones. My companion pointed out the various figures of men, women, and children, with their bundles and baskets, girdles, etc., and in the waning light of day it was not difficult to understand how the Indians had come to this conception of the fantastic forms standing all around the place. Even a mountain may be a Taquat, and all the Taquats are G.o.ds to whom the Coras pray and sacrifice food; but it is bad to talk about them.

It had often been a puzzle to me why primitive people should make for themselves stone idols to whom they might sacrifice and pray; but what is to us a rock or stone may be to the Indian a man or a G.o.d of ancient times, now turned into stone. By carving out features, head, body, or limbs, they only bring before their physical eyes what is in their mind's eye. This peculiar kind of pantheism can never be eradicated from the Indian's heart unless he is from infancy estranged from his tribal life.

In the centre of the dancing-place stood a magnificent tree not yet in leaf, called _chocote_, and there was some shrubbery growing about and around the place, which is very old. Only a few yards higher up among the rocks is a similar spot, with traces of still greater antiquity. The Indians had promised me that on this occasion one of their shamans would make a G.o.d's eye for me, and I was shown the stone on which he would sit while making it. It was near the tree; and back of it, arranged in a circle around the fire, were six similar stones, in place of the stools I had seen in Pueblo Viejo. The princ.i.p.al men had swept the place in the morning, and since then had been smoking pipes and talking to the G.o.ds.

There were also present a female princ.i.p.al, an old woman, with her little granddaughter who represented the moon. These too, it seemed, had to attend to certain religious duties which they perform for five years, the child beginning at the innocent age of three. During her term she lives with the old woman, whether she is related to her or not. The old lady has charge of the large sacred bowl of the community, an office vested only in a woman of undoubted chast.i.ty. This bowl is called "Mother," and is prayed to. It consists of half of a large round gourd, adorned inside and outside with strings of beads of various colours. It is filled with wads of cotton, under which lie carved stone figures of great antiquity. None but the chief religious authority is allowed to lift up the cotton, the symbol of health and life. The bowl rests also on cotton wads. On festive occasions the woman in charge brings the bowl to the dancing-place and deposits it at the middle of the altar. Parrot feathers are stood up along the inner edge, and each person as he arrives places a flower on top of the cotton inside of the bowl. This vessel is really the patron saint of the community. It is like a mother of the tribe, and understands, so the Indians say, no language but Cora. The Christian saints understand Cora, Spanish, and French; but the Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, the native saint of the Mexican Indians, understands all Indian languages.