The Indians in the vicinity had recently gone through the sensation of fighting with four real robbers, who had several times succeeded in plundering store-houses while the owners were off at some feast. At last the Indians had caught them. The thieves travelled on foot, but had a pack-horse which carried all the blankets and handkerchiefs stolen, the total value of which ran up to $112. Sixty-five Tarahumares had banded together in the course of four or five hours, and obliged the robbers to take refuge in a cave, from which they defended themselves with rifles for several hours. The Tarahumares first threw stones at them, as they did not want to waste their arrows. Finally Don Andres, who had been sent for, arrived at the place, and induced the robbers to surrender; but only with difficulty could he prevent the Tarahumares from attacking them. “What does it matter,” they said, “if one or two of us are killed?” Cowards as the Tarahumares are when few in number, they do not know fear when many of them are together. They are harmless when not interfered with, but neither forget nor forgive an injury. On several occasions they have killed white men who abused their hospitality, and they even threatened once, when exasperated by abuses, to exterminate all the whites in some sections of their domain.
The robbers were taken by an escort of Indians to the little town of Carichic, and from there sent to Cusihuiriachic (“where upright pole is”) to be tried. This place is about a hundred miles from Nararachic, and as the Indians during the next weeks were called to be present at the trial as witnesses, it annoyed them not a little. They were sorry they had not killed the evil-doers; and it would even have been better, they said, to have let them go on stealing.
In the fight the gobernador had got a bullet through his lung. I saw him a fortnight afterward, smoking a cigarette and on the way to recovery, and after some days he, too, walked to Cusihuiriachic. A few months later the robbers managed to dig themselves out of the prison.
On an excursion of about ten miles through the picturesque Arroyo de las Iglesias, I passed seventeen caves, of which only one was at present inhabited. All of them, however, had been utilised as dwellings before the construction of the road to Batopilas had driven the Indians off.
I saw also a few ancient cave-dwellings. Of considerable interest were some burial-caves near Nararachic, especially one called Narajerachic (= where the dead are dancing). A Mexican had been for six years engaged there in digging out saltpetre, with which he made powder, and the cave was much spoiled for research when I visited it. But I was able to take away some thirty well-preserved skulls and a few complete skeletons, the bodies having dried up in the saltpetre. Some clothing with feathers woven in, and some bits of obsidian and of blue thread were found, but no weapons or utensils. According to the miner, who appeared to be trustworthy, he had excavated more than a hundred corpses. They were generally found two and a half feet below the surface, and sometimes there were others underneath these. With many of them he found ear ornaments made of shells, such as the Tarahumares of to-day use, besides some textile made of plant fibre, and a jar with beans.
A few months later at Aboreachic (Tarahumare: Aoreachic = where there is mountain cedar) I examined a burial-cave in which the dead were interred in a different manner from that described before. The cave is somewhat difficult of access. The ascent of 300 feet has to be made over a track at some places so steep that holes have been cut for the feet, to enable a person to climb up. On reaching the top I found a spacious cave, which had been used as a kind of cemetery, but unfortunately the peculiarity of the cave had attracted treasure-seekers, whose destructive work was everywhere to be seen. Still I could see that the corpses had been placed each by itself in a grave in the floor of the cave. The graves were oblong or circular basins lined with a coating of grass and mud and about three feet deep. Apparently no earth had been placed immediately over the body, only boards all around it laid lengthwise in a kind of box. The bodies were bent up and laid on their sides. Over the top boards was spread a layer of pine bark about an inch thick, which in turn was covered with earth and rubbish three inches deep, and this was overlaid with the coating of grass and mud so as to form a solid disk four or five inches, thick. The edge of the basin was slightly raised, thus making the disk a little higher than the level of the floor. I secured four skulls from here, besides a piece of excellently woven cloth of plant fibre, another piece interwoven with turkey feathers, and a fragment of a wooden needle.
Don Andres told me that he had observed similar modes of burial in the neighbourhood of Nararachic. It may be worth mentioning that the miner who excavated in the burial-cave near Nararachic mentioned above, told me of having met with somewhat similar structures in his cave; the material was the same, but they were of different sizes, not larger than two feet, and he found them empty.
The ancient modes of burial that I have come upon, in the Tarahumare country are either like those in Nararachic or in Aboreachic. There scarcely seems any doubt that the bodies buried here were Tarahumares. The Indians of to-day consider the dead in the ancient burial-caves their brethren, and call them Ana-yáuli, the ancients.
From Guajochic I went to Nonoava (in Tarahumare: Nonoa, nōnó = father), although this town is outside of the Tarahumare country proper. The natives here, as may be expected, are pretty well Mexicanised, and losing their customs, religion, and language. The Apache raids were well remembered here, as they were in Carichic, Cusarare, and Bocoyna.
I came upon a Mexican here who had married a Tarahumare woman. His predilection for her tribe was also attested by his dress, which was exactly like that worn by the natives. He had a dark, almost swarthy complexion, but otherwise he did not resemble an Indian. His big; stomach and short arms and legs betrayed his real race, and contrasted strangely with the slender limbs and graceful movements of the Tarahumares.