A Tarahumare Beauty.
The young women enjoy absolute liberty, except as regards Mexicans, against whom they are always warned. They are told that they become sick from contact with such men. Never are they forced to contract what would turn out to be a loveless marriage. A beautiful Indian girl was much sought for by a Mexican. He spoke the Tarahumare language very well, and offered to give her a good house and fine clothes and a whole handful of silver dollars. Her brother, who was half civilised, and therefore more corrupt than the ordinary Indian, also tried to persuade her to accept the rich suitor. But she tossed up her head and exclaimed, “Tshíne awláma gátsha negālé” which, freely translated, means: “I do not like that fellow; love goes where it chooses.”
The custom of the country requires the girl to do all the courting. She is just as bashful as the young swain whom she wishes to fascinate, but she has to take the initiative in love affairs. The young people meet only at the feasts, and after she hag gotten mildly under the influence of the native beer that is liberally consumed by all, she tries to attract his attention by dancing before him in a clumsy way up and down on the same spot. But so bashful is she that she persistently keeps her back turned toward him. She may also sit down near him and pull his blanket and sing to him in a gentle low voice a simple love-song:
Se-(se)-ma-te re-hoy i-rú Se-(se)-ma-te re-hoy i-vá
Beau-ti-ful man to be sure, Beau-ti-ful man to be sure.
If occasion requires, the parents of the girl may say to the parents of the boy, “Our daughter wants to marry your son.” Then they send the girl to the boy’s home, that the young people may become acquainted. For two or three days, perhaps, they do not speak to each other, but finally she playfully begins to throw pebbles at him. If he does not return them, she understands that he does not care for her. If he throws them back at her, she knows that she has won him. She lets her blanket drop and runs off into the woods, and he is not long in following her.
Sometimes the boy, when he likes a girl very much, may make the first advances, but even then he has to wait until she throws the first pebbles and drops the blanket, for, among the Indians, it is the woman who seeks the man, and the fair who deserve the brave.
Tarahumare, Showing Mode of Wearing Blanket.