Most of the Tubars are found in the pueblo of San Miguel, seventeen miles from Morelos, down the river. An old woman told me that she did not know what the Tubars had done that they were disappearing from the world. The few remaining members of the tribe were related to one another, and the young people had to marry Mexicans. The customs of the Tubars evidently resembled much those of their neighbours, the Tarahumares, who until recent years invited them to their dances. The Tubars danced yohe, and the dancers accompanied their singing by beating two flat sticks, like two machetes. They did not use hikuli. In the sacristy of the church in the old Tubar village of San Andres, I found a complete tesvino outfit, jars, spoons, etc., the vessels turned bottom up, ready for use. The saints, too, must have tesvino, because they are greedy and exacting, and have to be propitiated. The Tubars are said to have worn white girdles.
Beads of Burnt Clay, from Tubar Tombs.
Natural Size.
Mr. Hartman, whom I left in San Miguel to conclude some investigations, returned a few weeks later to the United States. On the small plateaus near San Miguel, two hundred feet or more above the river, he found interesting old tombs, which were well known to the inhabitants under the name of bovedas. The presence of a tomb was indicated on the surface by a circuit of stones from three to five feet in diameter set in the ground. There were groups of ten or twelve circuits, and the tombs underneath were found at a depth of five or six feet. They consisted of small chambers excavated in the clayey soil, and were well preserved, though they contained no masonry work; still at one place a yoke of oxen while dragging the plough had sunk down into the subterranean cavity. The entrance to such a tomb is from one side, where a large slab, placed in a slanting position, protects the inside. Nothing was discovered in the four tombs that were opened but some curious slate-coloured beads of burnt clay. People of the district reported, however, that small jars of earthenware had been found in the bovedas. No doubt the absence of skeletons was due solely to the length of time that had elapsed, for even in the cemetery of the church Mr. Hartman found similar tombs that contained several skeletons. These tombs were indicated by the same kind of stone circuits as the rest, but were only about three feet down in the hard clay, and had no slabs in front of the entrance. In one of them Mr. Hartman found six corpses more or less decomposed, the sepulchre having evidently been used for a long time. In the same cemetery the Mexicans buried their dead.
I continued my journey down the river through the country once inhabited by the Tubars. As the heat was intense, I availed myself of the light of the full moon and travelled at night. Now and then the read touched the big river where the croaking of the frogs was intensely doleful and monotonous, but withal so loud that on a quiet night like this they could easily be heard two miles off.
Warm winds fanned me to sleep, and only when my mule ran me against some spiny branch, did I wake to find myself in a fantastic forest of leafless, towering cacti, that stood motionless, black, and silent in the moonlight, like spectres with numberless arms uplifted. The overwhelming noise of the frogs seemed to voice their thoughts and forbid me to advance farther. But the mule accelerated its pace, the shadows glided quicker and quicker, up and down the stony, slippery path that wound its way through this ghostly forest.
In the daytime there was a disagreeably strong, warm wind blowing, making it difficult even to get the saddles on our mules, but the nights were calm. At the pueblo of San Ignacio nobody speaks the Tubar tongue. Blue herons have a permanent breeding-place here on an almost perpendicular rock, four to six hundred feet high, where I counted twenty nests.
In travelling down to Tierra Caliente there is one place at which one must leave the river and ascend to the pine region. This is below the village of Tubares. The river narrows here and forms rapids, and it has been calculated that the water in flood-time rises sixty-five feet. Alligators do not go above these rapids. In two days’ journey from Morelos one may reach the undulating country of Sinaloa, la costa, which is warmer even than the barrancas.
At San Ignacio I left the river, and turned in a northeasterly direction to Batopilas. After five days’ pleasant sojourn at Mr. Shepherd’s hospitable home there, I again ascended the sierra, and, after visiting the Indians of Santa Ana and its neighbourhood, arrived at Guachochic. Leaving my mules here in charge of my friend Don Carlos Garcia, I soon started again toward the northeast on my way back to the United States, passing through the Indian ranches, and finally arriving at Carichic (in Tarahumare Garichi, “where there are houses,” probably ancient) on July 31st. At less than an hour’s distance from the place I was overtaken by a thunder-storm, the heaviest my Mexicans or I had ever experienced. In a few minutes the almost level fields were flooded as far as the eye could see, and the road we followed began to run with brown water. As we advanced through the mud, the small arroyos were rapidly filling. The rain did not abate, and the force of the currents steadily increased. When only three hundred yards from the town we found ourselves at the edge of a muddy stream, running so rapidly that it tore pieces from the bank, and carried small pines and branches of trees with it. As it was impossible to cross it, we had to wait, however impatiently, for the rain to subside sufficiently to allow us to wade through the water. And all the next day was spent in drying my things.
One year later I was again in Carichic, and from there I made my way to Guachochic. One night I had to spend in the house of a civilised Indian, as it rained too heavily for us to remain outdoors. The house was made of stone and mud, without windows, and the door had to be closed on account of the dogs. There was no way for air to get in except through the chimney, over the fireplace. There were nine people and one baby in the small room. Strange to say, I slept well.