On the day of the race the forenoon is spent in making bets, the managers acting as stakeholders. These people, poor as they are, wager their bows and arrows, girdles, head-bands, clothes, blankets, beads, ari, balls of yarn, corn, and even sheep, goats, and cattle. The stakes of whatever nature are tied together—a blanket against so many balls of yarn, a stick of ari against so many arrows, etc. At big races the wagers may amount to considerable heaps of such articles, and the position of manager requires a man of decision and memory, for he has to carry all the bets in his head and makes no written record of them. The total value of the wagers may reach a thousand dollars, and what to the Indians are fortunes may change hands in accordance with the result of the race. One man on one occasion had $50 worth of property at stake.
The scene is one of great animation. As many as two hundred people may assemble, among them women and children. At the gathering-point, which is called in Tarahumare “the betting-place,” all the bets are made, and here the race is started and concluded. Here the managers also place a row of stones, one stone for each circuit to be run, and whenever a circuit is completed one stone is taken away. In this way the count is kept. The runners walk about wrapped in their blankets like the rest of the people. They have had nothing to eat all day but pinole and tepid water, and their legs have been rubbed with warm water in the morning by the managers.
When finally all the people have arranged their stakes the gobernador steps forward and makes a speech, in which he specially exhorts the runners not to throw the ball with their hands; if they do, they certainly will go to hell! He also warns them against cheating of any kind.
Part of Tarahumare Rattling Belt.
At a given signal, quick as lightning, the runners throw off their blankets, and one man in each party, previously selected, throws his ball as far as he can, and all the runners start after it. A second ball is always kept in reserve, in case the first should be lost.
The racers wear rattles of deer-hoofs and bits of reeds tied together on a strip of leather, which they stick in the backs of their girdle or hang over their backs. The magic rattling keeps them from falling asleep while running, so they say; besides, the deer-hoofs lend them the swiftness of the stag. Some runners adorn themselves with feathers from various birds, preferably the macaw and the peacock, tying them to short sticks. The few Tarahumares who have ever seen a peacock think a good deal of this bird, because it is considered light-footed and mystic, being foreign to their country. Some runners may be seen who paint their faces and legs with white chalk, near Batopilas, for instance.
Tarahumare Foot-runners, Photographed After the Race.
They do not run at an extraordinary speed, but very steadily, hour after hour, mile after mile. Good runners make forty miles in six or eight hours. At one race, when they covered according to calculation twenty-one miles in two hours, I timed the leading runner and found that he made 290 feet in nineteen seconds on the first circuit, and on the next in twenty-four seconds. At a race rehearsal I saw them cover four miles in half an hour.