The day after my arrival I was requested to come to. La Comunidad, that the people might hear my letters read. This over, I explained that I wanted them to sell me some corn and beans, a blue tunic of native make, and other objects of interest to me, that I also wanted them to furnish me two reliable men to go to the city of Tepic for mail and money; that I wished to photograph them and to be shown their burial-caves, and to have a real, good old shaman visit me, and some men to interpret. The messengers were duly appointed, but it took them two days to prepare the tortillas they had to take along as provisions. My desire to see the burial-caves was looked upon with ill-favour. The old shaman, however, was promptly sent for. He soon arrived at the council-house, and without having seen me he told the Indian authorities that “it was all right to tell this man about their ancient beliefs, that the Government might know everything.” When he came to see me he took my hand to kiss, as if I were a padre, and I had a most interesting interview with the truthful, dear old man, who told me much about the Cora myths, traditions, and history. I gathered from what he said that he could not be far from a hundred years old, and he had not a grey hair in his head. His faculties were intact, except his hearing, and while I was interviewing him he was making a fish-net.
I had him with me one day and a part of the next, but by that time he was a good deal fatigued mentally, and I had to let him go.
There was an Indian here, Canuto, who could read and write, and, as he took a great interest in church affairs, he acted as a kind of padre. I was told that he ascended the pulpit and delivered sermons in Cora, and that he aspired even to bless water, but this the padre had forbidden him. He was very suspicious and intolerant and quite an ardent Catholic, the first Indian I had met who had entirely relinquished his native belief. He actually did not like mitote dancing, and the other Indians did not take kindly to him. All the time I was here he worked against me, because the priest of San Juan Peyotan, as I learned, had denounced me before the people.
Two traders from that town, who had been visiting Santa Teresa while I was there, had reported to the padre the presence of a mysterious gringo (American), who had a fine outfit of boxes and pack-mules, and who gave the Coras “precious jewellery” to buy their souls, and visited their dances. The padre, without having ever seen me, concluded that I was a travelling Protestant missionary, and one day after mass he warned the people against the bad Protestant who was on his way to corrupt their hearts and to disturb this valley in which there had always been peace. “Do not accept anything from him, not even his money; do not allow him to enter the church, and do not give him anything, not even a glass of water,” he said. This padre, so I was told by reliable authority, made the judges at San Juan and at San Lucas punish men and women for offences that did not come under their jurisdiction. The men were put into prison, while the women had fastened to their ankles a heavy round board, which they had to drag wherever they went for a week or two. It caused them great difficulty in walking, and they could not kneel down at the metate with it.
His speeches about me made a deep impression upon the illiterate Mexicans in that remote part of the world, who in consequence of it looked upon me with suspicion and shunned me. Not knowing anything better, they invented all kinds of wild charges against me: I was surveying the lands for Porfirio Diaz, who wanted to sell the Cora country to the Americans; I appealed only to the Indians because they were more confiding and could be more easily led astray, my alleged aim being to make Freemasons out of them. A Freemason is the one thing of which these people have a superstitious dread and horror. Even my letters of recommendation were doubted and considered spurious. However, one old man, whose wife I had cured, told me that Protestants are also Christians, and in his opinion I was even better than a Protestant. Fortunately, the Indians were less impressionable, and as their brethren in the sierra had not reported to them anything bad about me, they could see no harm in a man who did not cheat anyone and took an interest in their ancient customs and beliefs, while the padres had always made short work of their sacred ceremonial things, breaking and burning them.
When at last my messengers returned, after an absence of twelve days, I was surprised to note that they were accompanied by two gendarmes. The Commandant-General of the Territory of Tepic had not only been kind enough to cash my check for about $200, but had deemed it wise to send me the money under the protection of an escort, a precaution which I duly appreciated. As the return of the men was the only thing I had been waiting for, I now prepared to move up the river to the near-by pueblo of San Francisco, where the population is freer from Mexican influence.
When my hut was broken up, I found among my effects ten scorpions. The cañon is noted for its multitude of scorpions, and I was told that a piece of land above San Juan Peyotan had to be abandoned on account of these creatures. The scorpion’s sting is the most common complaint hereabout, and children frequently die from it, though not all kinds of scorpions are dangerous. The consensus of opinion is that the small whitish-yellow variety is the one most to be dreaded. The Cura of Santa Magdalena, State of Jalisco, assured me that he had known the sting of such scorpions to cause the death of full-grown people within two hours.
The scorpions of Mexico seem to have an unaccountable preference for certain localities, where they may be found in great numbers. In the city of Durango the hotels advertise, as an attraction, that there are no scorpions ill them. For a number of years, according to the municipal records, something like 60,000 scorpions have been annually killed, the city paying one centavo for each. Some persons earn a dollar a night by this means. Yet some forty victims, mostly children, die every year there from scorpion-stings.
The cura quoted above thinks that there is a zone of scorpions extending from the mining-place of Bramador, near Talpa, Territory of Tepic, as far north as the city of Durango, though he could not outline its lateral extent. At Santa Magdalena the scorpions are not very dangerous.