Some tough lenguaraz is not ashamed to cheat at games until the Indian has lost everything he has. One poor wretch lost several oxen in one game of quinze. Other sharpers borrow money from the natives and never pay back the loan, or else impose fines on the Indians under the pretext of being authorities. Some foist themselves upon the Tarahumares at their feasts, which they disturb by getting drunk and violating women. Where the Indians are still masters of the situation they catch such an offender and take him before the Mexican authorities, insisting upon his paying for all the requirements for another feast, as he has spoiled the value of the one on which he intruded. In the central part of the country, near Norogachic, they may even kill such a transgressor.
It is generally through mescal that the Indians become peons. When the Indian has once developed a taste for mescal, he will pay anything to get it, first his animals, then his land. When he has nothing more to sell, the whites still give him this brandy and make him work. And there he is. To work himself free is next to impossible, because his wages are not paid in money, but in provisions, which barely suffice to keep him and his family alive. Indians are sometimes locked up over night to force them to work.
The children of such parents grow up as peons of the Mexicans, who deal out miserable wages to the descendants of the owners of the land on which the usurpers grow rich. Before the occupancy of the country by the new masters, the Tarahumares never knew what poverty was. No wonder that the Christian Tarahumares believe that hell is peopled so thickly with Mexicans that there is not room for all. Some have been crowded out, and have come to the Tarahumares to trouble them. The Indians in some districts have been cheated so much that they no longer believe anything the white men tell them, and they do not offer food any more to a white stranger if he is what they call “deaf,” in other words, unable to speak and understand their language and explain what he is about.
They make very good servants when treated right, although they often want a change; but they will return to a good master. I once had a Tarahumare woman in my employ as cook. She was very industrious and in every way superior to any Mexican servant I ever had. When not busy with her kitchen work, she was mending her own or her two children’s clothes. While very distrustful, she was good-tempered and honourable, and spoke Spanish fairly well, and her eyes indicated unusual intelligence. A white man had deserted her to marry a Mexican woman, and she grieved much, but in time she became reconciled to her fate, though she declared she would never marry again, as all men were bad.
Civilised Tarahumare Boy.
The Tarahumares have made excellent soldiers in fighting for the Government. In one of the civil wars, their leader, Jesus Larrea, from Nonoava, a pure-bred Tarahumare, distinguished himself, not only by bravery and determination, but also as a commander. In private life he was civil and popular.
The majority speak their own language, and in the central and most mountainous part, the heart of the Tarahumare country, they are of pure breed. Here the women object to unions with outsiders, and until very recently light-coloured children were not liked. Mothers may even yet anoint their little ones and leave them in the sun, that they may get dark. The consensus of opinion among the tribe is that half-castes turn out to be bad people and “some day will be fighting at the drinking-feasts.” A few instances are known in which women have left their half-caste babies in the woods to perish, and such children are often given away to be adopted by the Mexicans. In the border districts, however, the Indians have become much Mexicanised and intermarry freely with the whites.
Be it said to the credit of those high in authority in Mexico, they do all in their power to protect the Indians. But the Government is practically powerless to control the scattered population in the remote districts. Besides, the Indians most preyed upon by the sharpers cannot make themselves understood in the official language, and therefore consider it hopeless to approach the authorities. In accordance with the liberal constitution of Mexico, all natives are citizens, but the Indians do not know how to take advantage of their rights, although sometimes large bodies have banded together and travelled down to Chihuahua to make their complaints, and have always been helped out—for the time being. The efforts of the Government to enlighten the Indians by establishing schools are baffled by the difficulty in finding honest and intelligent teachers with a knowledge of the Indian language.
Where the Indians have had little or nothing to do with the whites, they are obliging, law-abiding, and trustworthy. Profit is no inducement to them, as they believe that their gods would be angry with them for charging an undue price. As a matter of fact, they sell corn all the year round, whether it be scarce or plentiful, at the same price, though the Mexicans charge them very different prices. The almighty dollar has no devotees among these Indians. They have no need of aught that money can buy, and are swayed by persuasion and kind and just treatment more than by gold. If they have a few coins, they place them in a jar and bury them in some remote cave, taking from the horde only a little when they have to buy some necessity of life.