In the Land of Cave and Cliff Dwellers

by Frederick Schwatka

Even the word "Chihuahua" itself is a Tarahumari word, and was applied to the site of the present city of Chihuahua; its meaning is "the place where our best wares were made." The territory lying between the line of the Mexican Central Railway (which cuts through a small part of their ancient country) and the Sierra Madres proper, or where diligences cease to go and all transportation is done on mule-back or with donkeys, the Tarahumaris have abandoned to invading civilization, or have obeyed its mandates and become civilized themselves. They are only found in a primitive state in the Sierra Madres, with the far greater excess on the eastern slopes of the wide range. Beyond the Tarahumaris to the west are the Mayo and Yaqui tribes of Indians, on the rich and level slopes of the Mexican States of Sinaloa and Sonora; while on the north they come in contact with the omnipresent and widely feared Apache, whose hand was against everyone and everyone's hand against him.

Though a peaceful tribe of Indians, as far as their relations with Mexico have been concerned, they nevertheless were not wanting in the elements that made them good defenders of their land; and the Apaches, so dreaded by others, gave the mountainous country of the Tarahumaris a wide berth when on their raids in this direction. The Tarahumaris, equally armed, which they seldom were, were more than a match for these Bedouins of the boundary line between our own country and Mexico. One who had ever seen a group of the wild Tarahumaris would not credit them with a warlike or aggressive disposition, or even with much of the defensive combativeness that is necessary to fight for one's country. Even the semi-civilized among them are shy and bashful to a point of childishness that I have never seen elsewhere among Indians or other savages; and I have lived among nine-tenths of the Indian tribes of the United States and a great number outside of our domains. Heretofore the Eskimo of North Hudson Bay I deemed the most modest of savages, but they are brigands compared with the Tarahumari natives. If they have the least intimation of a white man's approach, he stands as little show of seeing them as if they were some timid animal fleeing for life.

A Mexican gentleman who owns a part interest in a rich silver mine in the great broken Barrancas leading out from the Sierra Madre toward the Pacific side, or into the States of Sinaloa and Sonora (but who always reached his mine by way of Chihuahua), told me that he had several times passed over the mountain trail on mule-back, when with a pack train, and not seen a single Tarahumari, although the trip occupied a number of days in their country, and took him where he should have seen two or three hundred if they had made no effort to escape his notice. The country thereabouts is well wooded and often heavily timbered, and the timid native, hearing the clang of the mule shoes on the rough, rocky trail, will at once retire to the seclusion of the nearest thick brush, and there wait until the intruder is out of sight.

They do not fly like a flock of quails suddenly surprised by the hunter, however, for, if caught, they generally stand and stare it out rather than seem to run from the white man while directly in his presence; but if the latter is vigilant and keeps his eyes wide open, he will often see them skulking away among the trees or behind the rocks as he is approaching their houses, or the caves or cliff dwellings wherein they abide. Of course, as one would naturally expect, the more savage Tarahumari natives, or those living in the rocks, cliffs, and caves, or brush jacals, are much wilder and more timid than those pretending to adopt the forms and duties of civilization. It is this peculiarity that has made it so hard to understand or learn anything about them, and this too in a land where so little interest is taken in gaining knowledge of the subject.

AN INDIAN HOME BETWEEN ROCK PILLAR AND TREE.

In my wanderings through this portion of the Sierra Madres (and right here I might state that on some Mexican maps this portion of the great range is occasionally labeled as the Sierra de Tarahumari, about the only place we ran across the name) I was more fortunate in seeing a large number of them engaged in more nearly all the labors and duties they are known to follow than is usually the case: the civilized Tarahumari, living in rough stone and adobe houses, with brush fences around his cultivated fields; and the most savage of the race, acknowledging none of the Mexican laws or customs, and living in caves in the rocks or under the huge bowlders, or in cliffs high up the almost perpendicular faces of the rock, where they probably tend a few goats and plant their corn on steep slopes, using pointed sticks to make the holes in the ground into which the grains are deposited.

In appearance the Tarahumari savage is, I think, a little above the average height of our own Indians in the Southwest. They are well built, and very muscular, while the skin of the cave and cliff dweller is of the darkest hue of any American native I have ever seen, being almost a mixture of the Guinea negro with the average copper-colored aborigine that we are so accustomed to see in the western parts of the United States. The civilized Tarahumaris are generally noticeably lighter in hue. The Mayos and Yaquis on the west, the Apaches to the north, the Tepehuanes to the south, and the Comanches to the east are lighter in their complexions than the cave- and cliff-dwelling Tarahumaris, although they live in much warmer climates than the latter. There is every opportunity to inspect the skin of the savage Tarahumari, as they wear only a breechclout and a pair of rawhide sandals; and if it be a little chilly—as it always is at evening, at night time, and morning on the elevated plateau land or mountainous regions of Mexico—they may add a serape of mountain goat's wool over their naked shoulders. Their faces generally wear a mild, pleasing expression, and their women are not bad-looking for savages, although the older women break rapidly in appearance after passing thirty to thirty-five years, as nearly as I could judge their ages. The savage branch of the Tarahumaris is of course the more interesting as the most nearly representing our own Indians of fifty to one hundred years ago, or before white men came among them. The civilized are not unlike those we have cultivating the soil in a rude way around the western agencies; although those of Mexico have no governmental aid such as we so often and so lavishly pour into the laps of our copper-colored brethren of the North.

The savage Tarahumari lives generally off all lines of communication, shunning even the mountain mule trails if he can. His abode is a cave in the mountain side or under the curving interior of some huge bowlder on the ground.