Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) / A Record of Five Years' Exploration Among the Tribes of the Western Sierra Madre; In the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and Among the Tarascos of Michoacan

by Carl Lumholtz

Chapter XVI

Religion—Mother Moon Becomes the Virgin Mary—Myths—The Creation—The Deluge—Folk-lore—The Crow’s Story to the Parrot—Brother Coyote—Beliefs about Animals.

The pagans or gentiles in the barrancas say that they have two gods, but no devil. These gods are Father Sun (Nonorúgami) and Mother Moon (Yerúgami). The Sun guards the men in the daytime; therefore the Tarahumares do not transact business after sunset. He also makes the animals sleep. The Moon watches at night, and is the special deity of the women. In her nightly vigils she is assisted by her son, the Morning Star, who commands all the other stars, because they are his sons and they are Tarahumares. The Stars advise their brothers on earth when thieves are entering their houses. When the Tarahumares affirm anything solemnly, they say, “By those above!” meaning the Sun, Moon, and the Stars.

But the greater part of the Tarahumares are nominally Christians, though all that they know of Christianity are the words Señor San José and Maria Santissima. Moreover, they have adopted the words Tata (Father) Dios (God) for their Father Sun; and the Virgin Mary becomes with them a substitute for Mother Moon, and in natural sequence the wife of Tata Dios. They celebrate in their own peculiar way all the Christian feasts they know, with as much pleasure and as elaborately as their own native ceremonies.

Next in importance is the Devil, whom they fear even more than their own sorcerers. He is always represented with a big beard, such as the Mexicans wear. He is old and has only one eye, and the shamans have seen him often. He plays the guitar, but never the violin, because the bow and the strings form a cross. He would like very much to go to heaven, and the shamans have to work hard to keep him from doing so. There is also a female devil, his wife, who bears many children, always twins, who are the original Mexicans.

Their paradise consists in big ranches, where they will get all the animals which in this life they sacrificed to Tara Dios. The occupation of Tata Dios in heaven is to run foot-races with the angels, while the Devil vies with the sorcerers in making the lives of the Tarahumares uncomfortable, he being the chief sorcerer of all.

The Tarahumares are the sons of God, and the Mexicans the sons of the Devil. For this reason the Tarahumares say that it is no crime to eat the cows of the Mexicans; they think the cows do not really belong to the Shabotshi anyway. Neither do they tell when a Tarahumare steals anything from a Mexican, while they are very quick to find out if one Tarahumare steals from another.

I give here some of the myths and traditions of the tribe. Those which Christian ideas have entered into will easily be recognised, and it is not necessary to draw special attention to them.