The Tarahumare men make bows and arrows, and in the central part of the country are great hunters and clever at shooting. The fore-shaft of their arrows is made of palo hediondo, a wood used also in the making of needles. But the people living near the pueblo of Panalachic and the Barranca de Cobre are poor shots, and their favourite weapon is the axe. The boys still play with slings, which not so long ago were used for killing squirrels. A club with a stone (Spanish, macana) is said to have been formerly in common use. The grandfathers of the present generation of Nararachic had flint-tipped arrows. The Indians also know how to prepare excellent buckskin. They peg the hide on the ground and leave it for three days, and when it is sufficiently dry the hair is scraped off with a knife. It is then smeared over with the brain of the animal and hung up in the sun for four days. The next step is to wash it well in warm water in a wooden trough. Then it is well kneaded, and two people taking hold of it draw it out of the water and stretch it well between them. It is dried again and is then tanned with the crushed bark of the big-leaved oak-tree.
A natural cavity in a rock is chosen for a vat, in which the skin is left for two days. After this it is well rinsed and squeezed until no water remains in it. Two persons are required for the operation, which is always performed in a place on which the sun beats strongly, while at the same time it is sheltered from the wind by surrounding rocks.
Deer are caught in snares fastened to a bent tree, so that the animal’s foot is held, while the tree when released hoists the quarry up. The Indians also chase deer with dogs toward some narrow passage in the track where they have placed sharp-pointed pine sticks, two feet long, against which the deer runs and hurts itself. Blackbirds are decoyed by kernels of corn threaded on a snare of pita fibre hidden under the ground. The bird swallows the kernel, which becomes entangled in its oesophagus and is caught. Small birds are also shot with bow and arrows, or killed with stones.
The Tarahumare is ingenious in devising many kinds of traps for birds and animals. Into the burrow of the gopher he places a small upright frame cut from a piece of bark. There is a groove inside of the frame, and in this the snare runs; and a string is attached to a bough above ground. Another string, on which some grains of corn are threaded, keeps the snare set and obstructs the gopher’s passage through the frame. When trying to get at the kernels the gopher cuts the string, the snare is released, and he is caught in his own burrow.
Squirrels are hunted in the most primitive way—by cutting down the tree on which an animal is discovered. Sometimes it will escape when the tree falls, and then the man has to cut down another tree, and thus he may go on felling as many as ten trees before he can bag his game, not a very substantial reward for a whole day’s work.
Weaving a Girdle.
Patterns of Tarahumare Belts.
The women make girdles and blankets on primitive looms, inserting characteristic designs in the weaving. It takes four days of constant work to make a girdle, but no woman weaves more than one blanket in a year, and it is almost an event when it is finished. The weaving frame consists simply of four sticks—placed on the ground tied together in a rectangle or triangle, and pieces of reed on which the thread is wound, one for each colour, are used as shuttles. Textiles from Pamachic are especially highly valued. The blankets from that locality are sold all over the Tarahumare country and are the finest made by the tribe.