Chapter IX
Arrival at Batopilas—Ascent from Batopilas to the Highlands of the Sierra—A Tarahumare who had been in Chicago—An Old-timer—Flight of Our Native Guide and its Disastrous Consequences—Indians Burn the Grass All Over the Country—Travelling Becomes too Difficult for the Animals—Mr. Taylor and I Go to Zapuri—Its Surroundings—The Pithaya in Season.
We continued our way toward the south, crossing Barranca de Cobre where it is 3,300 feet deep. The track we followed was fairly good, but led along several dangerous precipices, over which two burros rolled and were killed. The highest point we reached on the track over the highlands south of the barranca was 8,300 feet. There seemed to be a divide here, the climate being cool and moist, and the farthest ranges toward the south and west enveloped in mist and fog. Although Barranca de Batopilas is not as narrow and impressive as the barranca we had just left, still the mighty gap, as we looked into its hazy bottom from the highlands, presented an imposing, awe-inspiring sight.
Cactus Flowers.
Following the windings of the well-laid-out road we descended into the cañon and made camp a few miles this side of the town of Batopilas. The silver mines here, which are old and famous, were discovered in the seventeenth century. I was cordially received by Mr. A. R. Shepherd, the well-known mining expert, whose courtesy and kindness were much appreciated by the members of the expedition.
My recent experience had convinced me that the only way to study the natives properly was to live among them for a length of time, and as such a thing was out of the question with so large a party as I still had with me, I made up my mind to discharge as soon as possible everybody and to remain alone.
The country was now suffering from a relentlessly scorching sun. The heat increased as the wet season approached, and, as the animals were getting weaker and weaker, I disposed here of about half of them, and the number of attendants and the amount of baggage were correspondingly reduced. On continuing the journey with the weak and hungry mules, we found the ascent of the southern side of Barranca de Batopilas quite laborious; but on the crest we enjoyed the fresh breeze, the more gratefully after the enervating heat in the bottom of the cañon.
Thus we arrived at the village of Yoquibo (yōkí = bluebird; īvo = mesa: bluebird on the mesa). Here I had to stop for a few days to reconnoitre the road. I was told that the grass had been burned by the Indians almost as far as the ranches of Guachochic, our main objective point. The Indians at that time (May) always burn the grass, and the entire country is wrapped in smoke. This, they think, is necessary to produce rain; smoke-clouds and rain-clouds, in their opinion, bringing about the same ultimate result. But it is exceedingly trying for travellers, man and beast. Only by accident is some little spot of grass spared here and there, and progress becomes almost an impossibility.
Immediately upon our arrival I went to see the gobernador, and, strange to say, I found him engaged in teaching his young wife how to weave. Three months ago his first wife had died of smallpox. Old bachelors and widowers have a hard time in getting wives, because the Tarahumare belles have a decided preference for young men. But the wifeless Indian feels very unhappy, as it means that he has to do all the woman’s housework, which is very laborious, and therefore thoroughly distasteful to him. By way of fascinating this young girl, the gobernador had to exert himself to the extent of teaching her how to make girdles and wearing apparel.
The next day this gentleman returned my call, carrying his bow and arrows. I had already learned in Batopilas that the party of Indians who, about two years ago, had been exhibited by a now deceased traveller as representative cave-dwellers, had been gathered mainly in the neighbourhood of Yoquibo. My visitor had been one of the troupe, and I was eager to find out what impression the civilised world had made on this child of nature, who had never known anything but his woods and his mountains. Therefore, almost my first question was, “How did you like Chicago?” “It looks very much like here,” was the unexpected reply. What most impressed him, it seemed, was neither the size of the city nor its sky-scrapers, though he remembered these, but the big water near which those people dwelt. He had liked riding in the railroad cars, but complained that he had not had enough to eat on the journey.
His experience on the trip had familiarised him with the white man and his queer, incomprehensible ways, and made him something of a philosopher. I wanted him to accompany me on my visits to the few houses here, as the people were very shy and timid. Although he was very much engaged, as I could see, having to look after his animals as well as his wife, he obligingly went with me to two houses. We saw a woman with twins; one of them a miserable-looking specimen, suffering from lack of food.
Making Larvæ Ready for the Pot.
There were also some cave-dwellings near Yoquibo, one or two of which were occupied. In the afternoon, when I went out alone, the people all disappeared the moment they saw me approaching, except one group of strangers who had come to beg and did not pay any attention to me. They were too busily engaged in making ready for the pot a certain kind of larvae, by extracting them from the cocoon, a small white sac of silky texture found on the strawberry tree.
The guide told me that Indians like these, who beg for food, always return, to those who give them alms, the amount of the gift, as soon as their circumstances allow.
Here in Yoquibo I met one of those Mexican adventurers who under one pretext or another manage to get into the Indian villages and cannot be routed out again. Certain of them ply some little trade, generally that of a blacksmith, others act as “secretaries,” writing what few communications the Indians may have to send to the government authorities; some conduct a little barter trade, exchanging cheap cotton cloth, beads, etc., for sheep and cattle; but most of them supply the Indians with Mexican brandy, mescal. The one in Yoquibo had established himself in the only room left intact in the old dilapidated vicarage, and eked out a living by selling mescal to the Indians.
This fellow’s appearance, especially his unsteady, lurking eyes, suggested the bandit. No doubt, like most of his class, he was in hiding from the government authorities. He was something of a hypochondriac, and among other ailments he thought he had an animal in his stomach, which he got in there by way of a knife-stab he had received some time ago. When he came to me to get some remedy, he carried a rather fine rifle, and in spite of all his suffering, real or imaginary, the bandit nature asserted itself, when I made some complimentary remark regarding his weapon. His half-closed eyes slurred in a crafty, guileful manner from side to side as he drawled: “Despues de Dios, mi rifle!” (“Next to God, my rifle!”)
After considerable looking about, I at last found an Indian willing to act as guide for the next stage of our journey. He was an elderly man, and at dusk he was quietly sitting near the camp fire, eating his supper, when the tall figure of Mr. Hartman appeared on the scene, wrapped in a military overcoat. He probably looked to the Indian very martial and threatening as he approached through the twilight. At any rate, his appearance had a most unexpected effect on our guide. I suddenly heard a noise behind me, and on looking around, I saw him running as fast as his legs would carry him, leaving his supper, dropping his blanket, splashing through the creek and disappearing in the night, never to be seen again by us. He imagined that a soldier was coming to seize and kill him; that the meat-pot in which he was to be cooked was already on the fire, while the skulls of other unfortunates that had been eaten were lying in a heap near one of the tents. He alluded apparently to four skulls which I had taken out of an ancient burial cave. In explanation I will say that some time ago he had been arrested for some crime and had broken away from jail; soldiers, or rather, the police, were after him, and he mistook Mr. Hartman for one of his pursuers and ran for safety.
The incident proved somewhat unfortunate for us. In consequence of the wild stories he told about us, the Indians, of a suspicious nature anyway, sent messengers all over the sierra, warning the people against the man-eaters that were coming. Our strange proceedings in Cusarare, namely, the photographing, had already been reported and made the Indians uneasy. The terrible experience of our runaway guide seemed to confirm their wildest apprehensions, and the alarm spread like wildfire, growing in terror, like an avalanche, the farther it went. We found the ranches deserted on every hand, women and children hiding and screaming whenever they caught a glimpse of us. At every turn our progress was impeded. Wherever I came I was abhorred as the man who subsisted on babies and green corn, and the prospect of my ever gaining the confidence of the Indians was exceedingly discouraging for the next four or five months.
Though it was impossible to secure a new guide, I still made a start next day, following a fairly good track which leads south toward Guachochic. Yet further obstacles presented themselves. The animals began to give out. It was the season of the year when they change their coats, and are in poor condition even under the best circumstances, and mine were exhausted from lack of food. They would not eat the dry grass, and the green pasture was still too scanty to suffice for their maintenance. The information that the natives had burned all the grass proved correct to its fullest extent, so there was nothing for me to do but to establish a camp, scarcely a day’s journey off, at Tasajisa, where there was some pasture along the ridges that had as yet escaped the fire of the Indians. Leaving the larger part of my outfit and about half of my mules in charge of my chief packer, Mr. Taylor and I continued the journey with the best and strongest of the animals, making a circuitous tour to the little mining town of Zapuri, in the neighbourhood of which were some caves I wanted to investigate.
After a day’s journey we turned westward and got beyond the range of the fires. Turkeys were seen close to our camp and appeared plentiful; I also saw a giant woodpecker, but just as I got ready to shoot, it flew away with a great whirr of its wings. We soon began to descend, and after a long and fatiguing day’s travel over cordons and sierras, and through a wide barranca surrounded by magnificent towering mountains, we arrived, late in the afternoon, at Zapuri. The superintendent of the mine, to whom I brought a letter of introduction from the owner of the property, received us with cordial hospitality. Here the climate was splendid; the nights were just pleasantly cool, the mornings deliciously calm; they were all the more enjoyed after the windy weather of the sierra.
Immediately upon my arrival here I had a chance, through the courtesy of the superintendent, to secure a Mexican and some strong mules, which took Mr. Taylor over to Parral on his way back to the United States. Mr. Hartman remained with the expedition two months longer, to join me again the following year for a few months. I also got a guide for myself and made an excursion to the caves in the neighbouring barrancas. After we had gone some ten miles over very bad roads, we came to the home of an old Tarahumare woman, who was reputed to be very rich. Knowing Mexican exaggeration in this regard, I computed that the twelve bushels of pesos she was supposed to have hidden might amount, perhaps, to $50 or $100 Mexican money. Whatever her wealth was, she showed it only in a lavish display of glass beads around her scrawny neck; they must have weighed at least six or eight pounds. But then, her homestead was composed mainly of four or five substantial circular store-houses.
The wealth of the Tarahumare consists in his cattle. He is well off when he has three or four head of cattle and a dozen sheep and goats. There is one instance where a man had as many as forty head of cattle, but this was a rare exception. They rarely keep horses, and never pigs, which destroy their cornfields; and are believed, besides, to be Spaniards (Gachupines). Pork, though sometimes eaten, is never sacrificed. No tame turkeys are kept, but occasionally the people have some hens, and in rare cases a family may keep a turtle dove or a tame quail. When a man has oxen, he is able to plough a large piece of land and raise enough corn to sell some. But corn is seldom converted into money.
Here we packed the most necessary things on our best mule, and with the guide and two Indians, who carried bundles, we descended to the river. The road was fairly good, but as we approached the river we came to several bad places. In one of these the mule’s aparejo struck a rock, which caused the animal to lose its foothold. Unresistingly it slid down the steep slope for about seven yards and came against a tree, forefeet on one side, hindfeet on the other. The boy who led it, eager to do something, managed to get the halter off, so that there was nothing by which to hold the animal except its ears. I held fast to one of these, steadying myself on the loose soil by grabbing a root sticking out of the ground. The intelligent animal lay perfectly still over the trunk. Finally I managed to get out my bowie-knife and cut the ropes off the pack, which rolled down the hill, while the mule, relieved of its bulky burden, scrambled to its feet and climbed up. It was born and bred in the barranca, otherwise it would never have been able to accomplish this feat.
Toward evening we arrived at the section of a barranca called Ohuivo (Ōví = return, or “the place to which they returned”) on the Rio Fuerte. The Indians here, although many of them have been affected by the nearness of the mines, are reticent and distrustful, and our guide evidently had not much influence with them. They refused to be photographed, and even the gobernador ran away from the terrible ordeal.
Gathering Pithaya.
During the several days I remained in this valley the heat never varied from 100°, day and night, which was rather trying and made doing anything an exertion. The country looked scorched, except for the evergreen cacti, the most prominent of which was the towering pithaya. Its dark-green branches stand immovable to wind and storm. It has the best wild fruit growing in the north-western part of Mexico, and as this was just the season when it ripens, the Indians from all around had come to gather it. It is as large as an egg and its flesh soft, sweet, and nourishing. As the plant grows to a height of twenty to thirty-five feet, the Indians get the fruit down with a long reed, one end of which has four prongs, and gather it in little crates of split bamboo, which they carry by straps on their backs. It is a sight to see men, women, and children start out gaily at daybreak, armed with slender sticks, climbing rugged heights with grace and agility, to get the pithaya, which tastes better when plucked at dawn, fresh and cool, than when gathered during the heat of the day. The fruit, which lasts about a month, comes when it is most needed, at the height of the dry season (June), when the people have a regular feasting-time of it. Mexicans also appreciate the pithaya, and servants frequently abscond at that time, in order to get the fruit. The beautiful white flowers of the plant are never found growing on the north side of the stem.
With the Indians, the pithaya enters, of course, into religion, and the beautiful macaw (guacamaya), which revels in the fruit, is associated with it in their beliefs. The bird arrives from its migration to southern latitudes when the pithaya is in bloom, and the Indians think that it comes to see whether there will be much fruit; then it flies off again to the coast, to return in June, when the fruit is ripe. The following gives the trend of one of the guacamaya songs: “The pithaya is ripe, let us go and get it. Cut off the reeds![1] The guacamaya comes from the Tierra Caliente to eat the first fruits. From far away, from the hot country, I come when the men are cutting the reeds, and I eat the first fruits. Why do you wish to take the first fruits from me? They are my fruits. I eat the fruit, and I throw away the skin. I get filled with the fruit, and I go home singing. Remain behind, little tree, waving as I alight from you! I am going to fly in the wind, and some day I will return and eat your pithayas, little tree!”
[1] With which the fruit is brought down.