In my time there was a padre (now removed) who emulated the example of the shamans and was frequently in his cups. On one occasion he was unable to perform the marriage ceremonies, and the sacristan accompanying him had to take his place. All this man knew about the rite was to ask the man and the woman whether they would have each other. On hearing their “Yes” he would say, “Where is the dollar?” and pocketing it send the couple off with, “Now you are all right.”
When an addition is expected in the family the chief preparation of the woman is to get ready a quantity of beer, calling on her friends to help her, while the husband goes to look for the shaman. When she feels her time is approaching, she retires to some lonely spot, as she is too bashful to bear her child while others are about. She tightens her girdle around her waist, and bears her child sitting up, holding on to something above her, like the branch of a tree. After the little stranger has arrived the husband may bring her a jar with warm water from which she occasionally drinks. He also digs a hole, in which, after he has gone, she buries the placenta, placing stones on top of the place on account of the dogs. The umbilical cord is cut with a sharp reed or a sharp-edged piece of obsidian, but never with a knife, for in that case the child would become a murderer and could never be a shaman. I once asked a Tarahumare where he was born, expecting him to give me the name of some ranch; I was rather amused when he pointed to a big stone a little farther on along the slope. That was his birthplace.
The mother may lie down for that day, but the following morning she works as usual, as if nothing had been the matter with her. The husband does not work for three days, because he thinks his axe would break, or the horns of his ox would fall off, or he would break a leg. The third day he takes a bath.
When the baby is three days old the shaman comes to cure it. A big fire is made of corn-cobs, the little one is placed on a blanket, and with the father’s assistance the shaman carries it, if it is a boy, three times through the smoke to the four cardinal points, making the ceremonial circuit and finally raising it upward. This is done that the child may grow well and be successful in life, that is, in raising corn. Then the shaman takes a burning corn-cob from the fire and with the charred end makes three parallel lines lengthwise over the child’s head and three across them. He also sprinkles tesvino on the head and other vital parts of the body to make them strong, and cures the umbilical cord. He may, too, anoint the child with the fat of the rattlesnake mixed with herbs, and leave it in the sun, that the light may enter its heart. For his services the shaman gets a little maize, beans, salt, etc.
On the fourth day the mother goes down to the river to bathe, and while bathing leaves the little one naked, exposed to the sun for at least an hour, in spite of all its wailings, that Father Sun may see and know his new child. The baby is not washed until it is a year old. Then it is cured again, by the shaman, who on various occasions throughout its life repeats his curing, that the child may grow well and that no sickness or bad accidents may befall it. To protect it still further, pieces of palo hediondo or the chuchupate root, the strong smell of which is supposed to avail against disease, are wrapped in a piece of cloth and tied around the child’s neck.
The mother nurses the child until it is three years old. In some instances she begins to give it once in a while a little pinole when it is only six months old. When two years of age a child begins to walk and to talk. Sometimes when the mother is busy, for instance at the metate, and will not stop to nurse him, the little rascal may take a stick and in his way try to beat her.
The Tarahumare woman is a faithful mother, and takes good care of her children. She generally has from six to eight, often more. While small the children play with primitive dolls. They dress up corn-cobs with scraps of textiles and put them upright in the sand, saying that they are matachines and drunken women. They also play, like other children, with beans and acorns, or with young chickens with their legs tied together. Of course the youngsters maltreat these. Sometimes they play, too, with stuffed squirrels, but there are no special children’s games. The father makes bows and arrows for the boys, and instructs them in hunting and agricultural work. As the girls grow up, the mother teaches them how to spin yarn and weave blankets, “for,” she tells them, “otherwise they will become men.” She also warns them not to have children too rapidly in succession, for there is no one to carry them for her. Women cannot eat the tenderloin until they are very old, because if they did they could have no children. For the same reason they must not eat the pancreas. The women who fear lest they may have difficulty in giving birth to a child make soup of an opossum and eat it. Girls must not touch deer antlers, or their breasts would fall off.
Tarahumare Blankets.
A characteristic custom is that the children, no matter how old they get, and even after they are married and have families of their own, never help themselves to anything in the parents’ house. The mother has to give all the food, etc., and she gives as long as she has anything.