Tarahumare Blanket.
The Tarahumare never does anything without due deliberation; therefore he may, for quarter of an our, discuss with his wife the possible purport of the visit, before he goes out to see the man. They peep through the cracks in the wall at him, and if they happen to be eating or doing anything, they may keep the visitor waiting for half an hour. Finally the host shakes out the blanket on which he has been sitting, throws it around himself, and, casting a rapid glance to the right and left as he passes through the door, goes to take a seat a few yards distant from the caller. After some meditation on either side, the conversation, as in more civilised society, opens with remarks about the weather and the prospects for rain. When this subject is exhausted, and the host’s curiosity as to where the man came from, what he is doing, and where he is going to, is satisfied, the former may go back to the house and fetch some pinole and meat for the traveller. The object of the visit not infrequently is an invitation to take part in some game or foot-race; and as the men are sure to remain undisturbed, they generally reach some understanding. A friend of the family is, of course, finally invited to enter the house, and the customary salutation is “Assagá!” (“Sit down!”) In this connection it may be noted that the Tarahumares in conversation look sidewise, or even turn their backs toward the person they speak to.
A Tarahumare Call.
After having eaten, the guest will carefully return every vessel in which food was given to him, and when he rises he hands back the skin on which he was seated. Should occasion require, the host will say: “It is getting late, and you cannot return to your home to-night. Where are you going to sleep? There is a good cave over yonder.” With this he may indicate where the visitor may remain over night. He will also tell him where he may find wood for the fire, and he will bring him food; but not unless the weather is very tempestuous will he invite an outsider to sleep in the house.
When at home the Tarahumare keeps regular hours, rising and retiring with the sun. Having slept on a skin on the floor, rolled up in his blanket, without anything for a pillow except perhaps a stone or a chunk of wood, he sits for a while near the fire, which is kept up most of the year at night in the house or cave. His wife brings him his breakfast of pinole. While combing out his long black hair with a pine cone, he may ask the boys and girls whether they have attended to the traps he told them to set on the night before. They run out and soon they come in with some mice. “Here they are,” they say, “but they are very poor!” The father, however, may consider them fat and nice, and the mother affably adds: “Of course, they are fat, since they have eaten so much corn.” They go about to roast them, while the husband looks on. Generally the Tarahumares have a number of traps set to catch mice. They are so fond of this “game” that, when civilised, they have been known to ask permission from Mexican acquaintances to go through their houses to hunt for them. The mice are skinned and threaded on a thin stick, which is stuck through their necks and serves as a spit.
Tarahumare Arrow Release.
Having enjoyed the dainty morsel thus set before him, the husband now tells his wife what he is going to do to-day. He will run deer or hunt squirrels, and accordingly takes his bow and arrows or his axe with him. In spring-time he may go to the field. The wife also tells of her plans for the day. The work that engages most of the time of the housewives in Mexico is the grinding of the corn, on the metate, for corn-cakes; and if she has any time to spare she boils beans, looks for herbs, or works on her weaving-frame; but she never sits about idle. She looks as conscientiously after her duties as any white woman; she has always something to do, and many things to take care of in her small way.