My mules and outfit had been well taken care of at Guachochic, and I now arranged with Don Carlos Garcia to take most of my belongings to Guanazevi, a mining town in the neighbouring State of Durango, while with a few of the best mules I crossed Barranca de San Carlos near Guachochic, and pursued my way through regions inhabited by Tarahumares and Tepehuanes. A stammering Tarahumare was observed, the only Indian with this defect that has come to my notice.
The road I followed to Guanazevi from Guadalupe y Calvo leads through a part of the Sierra Madre which is from nine to ten thousand feet high and uninhabited, and for two days we met nobody. In winter the region is dreaded on account of the heavy snowfalls that are liable to occur here. Several people are said to have perished, and one freighter on one occasion lost twenty-seven mules. In the wet season bears are numerous, and, according to trustworthy information, have attacked and eaten several Tarahumares.
We camped one night at a place where a man had been killed by robbers some time before, and one of the Mexicans shudderingly expressed his fear that we should probably hear the dead man cry at night. This led to a discussion among the men as to whether the dead could cry or not. The consensus of opinion was that the dead could cry, but they could not appear. This, by the way, is the common Indian belief. My Tepehuane servant took an intense interest in the arguments. His face became suddenly animated with fear, and the thought of the dead changed him from an indolent fellow into a valuable aid to my chief packer in watching the animals at night. His senses became so keen as to be quite reassuring in regard to robbers at night, and from that time on he was really a valuable man, active and alert.
There is a small colony of Tarahumares living a few miles north of Guanazevi, near San Pedro. Here I excavated some corpses that had been buried several years before on a little plain. The graves were about four feet deep. In Guanazevi a silver “bonanza” was in full blast and much activity prevailed.
We were now outside of the sierra proper; but on the route south, which I followed for several days, I was never farther away from the mountain range than thirty miles. At Zape, about twenty miles to the south, there are some ancient remains. As the principal ones have been described by E. Guillemin Tarayre, who explored Mexico under Maximilian, it is not necessary for me to dwell on the subject. Suffice it to say that walls constructed of loose stones are commonly seen on the crests of the low hills and are attributed to the Cocoyomes. Circles and squares made of stones set upright in the ground may also be seen, and nicely polished stone implements are frequently to be found near by.
Outside of Zape are a number of ancient burial-caves, which have been disturbed by treasure-seekers. As a curiosity, I may mention that a Mexican once brought to light a big lump of salt that had been buried there. It was given to the cattle.
One afternoon a gay little procession of men and women passed my camp, some on horseback, others walking. One of the riders played the violin, another one beat a drum. An old woman who just then stepped up to sell something explained to me that “an angel” was being buried. This is the designation applied to small children in Mexico, and I could see an elaborate white bundle on a board carried aloft by a woman. My informant told me that when a child dies the parents always give it joyfully to heaven, set off fireworks and dance and are jolly. They do not weep when an infant dies, as the little one would not enter Paradise, but would have to come back and gather all the tears.
The way southward led through undulating country devoid of interest. To judge from the clusters of ranches, so numerous as to form villages, the land must be fertile. There were no more Indians to be seen, only Mexicans. All along the road we observed crosses erected, where people had been killed by robbers, or where the robbers themselves had been shot. A man’s body is generally taken to the cemetery for burial, whether he was killed or executed, but a cross is raised on the spot where he fell. The crosses are thus mementos of the reign of terror that prevailed in Mexico not long ago. Most of the victims were so-called Arabs, or travelling peddlers, sometimes Syrians or Italians, but generally Mexicans.
The most important place I passed was the town of Santiago de Papasquiaro, which is of some size, and situated in a rich agricultural country. The name of the place means possibly “paz quiero” (“I want peace”), alluding to the terrible defeat of the Indians by the Spaniards in the seventeenth century. There is reason to believe that before 1593 this central and western part of Durango had been traversed and peopled by whites, and that many Spaniards had established haciendas in various parts of the valley. They held their own successfully against the Tepehuanes until 1616, when these, together with the Tarahumares and other tribes, rebelled against them. All the natives rose simultaneously, killed the missionaries, burned the churches, and drove the Spaniards away. A force of Indians estimated at 25,000 marched against the city of Durango, carrying fear everywhere, and threatening to exterminate the Spanish; but the governor of the province gathered together the whites to the number of 600, “determined to maintain in peace the province which his Catholic Majesty had placed under his guardianship.” He routed the enemy, leaving on the field more than 15,000 dead insurgents, without great loss to his own troops. The Indians then sued for peace, and after their leaders had been duly punished, they were dispersed to form pueblos. The insurrection lasted over a year, and many bloody encounters between the natives and their new masters occurred in the course of the following centuries, the result being that the Indians in the State of Durango have not been able to maintain themselves, except in the extreme northern and southern sections.
There was an epidemic of typhoid fever in some of these ranch-villages, and in one place I saw two dogs hung up in a tree near the road, having been killed on account of hydrophobia. A strong wind was blowing day and night on the llanos along the river-course, which annoyed us not a little. It was a real relief to get up again on the sierra, about fourteen miles south of Papasquiaro, and find ourselves once more among the quiet pines and madroñas.