On the fifth day the dead is despatched from this world. In the small hours of the morning the shaman, with his plumes and pipe, and a jar of water into which some medicinal herbs have been thrown, leads the procession toward the west, while the people, including women and children, carry branches of the zapote-tree. They stop, while it is still dark, and the shaman steps forward and despatches the deceased. He returns very soon, and sprinkles water on the people and toward the west, where the dead has gone.
Chapter XXVII
Inexperienced Help—How to Acquire Riches from the Mountains—Sierra del Nayarit—The Coras—Their Aversion to “Papers”—Their Part in Mexican Politics—A Déjeuner à la Fourchette—La Danza.
It is practically impossible to travel from tribe to tribe in Mexico without changing muleteers, not only because the men generally object to going so far from their homes, but also because it is not advantageous to employ men who do not know the country through which they are passing. Whenever the Indians understood something about packing mules, I preferred them to the Mexicans, because I could learn much from them on the way. The latter part of my travels I employed none but Indians.
The unwillingness of desirable men to leave their homes makes a frequent change very embarrassing. My next destination from Pueblo Viejo was Santa Teresa, the most northern of the Cora pueblos, and everybody thought it was too far away. I had finally to take whatever I could get in the way of carriers. For instance, I had only one man on whom I could depend, a civilised Tepehuane, who was bright and knew his business well, but he was hampered by an injured arm. Then I obtained another man, somewhat elderly. He, too, became suddenly aware that his right arm was crooked and not strong enough to lift heavy burdens, while the two remaining carriers had never loaded a mule in their lives. The first two directed the other pair how to proceed, and thus I was treated to the ludicrous spectacle of four men engaged in packing one mule. Naturally it took all day to load my ten animals, and when this was accomplished, it was too late to start, so that the day’s work turned out to be nothing but a dress-rehearsal in the noble art of packing mules. The result was that I had to take a hand myself in putting the aparejos on the animals, shoeing them and curing the sore backs, which, as a matter of course, developed from the inexperience of some of the men.
On the second day, by a stupendous effort, we started, but could go only eight miles to a beautiful llano surrounded by oaks and pines. A few ranches are all that remains of the village that once existed here. On one of them lived a rich Cora who had married a Tepehuane woman. All Coras get rich, the Indians here assert, because they know better how to appease the gods. They submit to fasting and restrictions for a month, or even a year, and then go “to the richest mountain the ancient people knew.” The master of the mountain comes out and the two make a bargain, the Cora agreeing to pay for the cattle, deer, corn, and other possessions, with men that he kills. The belief that the mountains are the masters of all riches—of money, cattle, mules, sheep, and shepherds—is common among the tribes of the Sierra Madre.
When it devolves upon a Cora to make good his agreement and kill a man, he makes from burnt clay, strips of cloth, etc., a small figure of the victim and then with incantations puts thorns through the head or stomach, to make the original suffer. He may even represent the victim on horseback, and place the figure upside down to give him pain. Sometimes a Cora makes a figure of the animal he wants, forming it of wax or burned clay, or carving it from tuff, and deposits it in a cave in the mountain. For every cow, deer, dog, or hen wanted, he has to sacrifice a corresponding figure.
The next day we followed for some time the camino real, which leads from Acaponeta to the towns of Mezquital and Durango. We then descended without difficulty some 3,000 feet into the cañon of Civacora, through which flows a river of the same name, said to originate in the State of Zacatecas. It passes near the cities of Durango and Sombrerete, this side of Cerro Gordo. In this valley, which runs in a northerly and southerly direction, we found some Tepehuanes from the pueblo of San Francisco.
The Indians here were defiant and disagreeable, and would not even give us any information about the track we were to follow. They had the reputation of stealing mules and killing travellers for the sake of the corn the latter are likely to carry. I therefore put two men on guard and allowed them to fire off a rifle shot as a warning, something they always like to do. The sound reverberated through the still night with enough force to frighten a whole army of robbers. The next morning I sent for the most important Tepehuane, told him the object of my visit, and asked him about the track. He gave me what information he could, but he was unable to procure a guide for a longer time than that day. We were then left to ourselves, with the odds against us. Twice we lost our way, the first time passing a mitote dancing-place, and coming to a halt before a steep mountain wall, passable only for agile Indians. The second time we landed at the edge of a deep barranca, and there was nothing to do but to turn back to a ranch we had passed some time before. Luckily we met there a Tepehuane and his wife, who assured us that we were at last on the right track. However, we did not advance farther than the confluence of two arroyos, which the man had pointed out to us deep down in the shrubbery. Before leaving us he promised to be at our camp in the morning to show us the road to Las Botijas, a small aggregation of ranches at the summit. In a straight line we had not gone that day more than three miles.