Vagabond Life in Mexico

by Gabriel Ferry

"You will then be taken by force," said the Indian, pointing to his armed escort. This gesture was sufficient. It was impossible for us to resist, for the ministers of Indian justice had very prudently seized our horses and arms. We looked at one another in no small dismay. The Indian mansos, who rule their villages according to the laws of the republic, and even choose from their brothers of the same race their municipal magistracy, behave in the most merciless manner to all the Mexicans who may have committed any crimes in the district intrusted to their care. The worst of all cruelties, the cruelty of weakness, is resorted to on such occasions. It was quite useless to struggle against those sturdy rough alguazils with the bare legs and long hair. We went quietly enough to the house of the alcalde.

"Have patience," said Fray Serapio to me, in a low voice, while going along: "instead of the history of Fray Epigmenio, which I will tell you at some other time, you will behold a sight which few foreigners have an opportunity of seeing in Mexico. If I am not mistaken, we have fallen upon this cursed village at the very time when the Indians celebrate, in their way, the fêtes of the Holy Week. The house of the alcalde is one of the ordinary resting-places of their nocturnal processions."

I had often heard of these singular ceremonies, in which the remains of Indian idolatry are mixed up with the rites of Catholicism. Just when I was going to reply to Fray Serapio, some melancholy monotonous sounds met our ears. The plaintive wail of the reed flute, called by the Indians chirimia, was sadly intermingled with the tapping of several drums struck at regular intervals.

"Three hundred years ago," said Don Diego Mercado to me in a whisper, "it was to the sound of these chirimias that the ancestors of these Indians butchered their human victims at the feet of their idols."

Round a lane, which ran at right angles to the road, came the procession whose approach was announced by this funereal music. Engaged during the day in cultivating their grounds, the Indians devote the night to certain religious solemnities. The time thus adds to the lugubrious effect of their ceremonies. At the head of the procession, borne by four men, was an image of Christ, of a hideously gigantic form, bedabbled with blood. At the two arms of the cross hung two Christs of a smaller size; behind came a disorderly throng of Indians from the village and its environs, carrying crosses of all shapes and dimensions. I remarked that the size of several of the crosses was by no means in harmony with the height of the person who carried them; their dimensions were, in fact, only regulated by the higher or lower sum paid by the person who wished to figure in these processions. The most splendid images were carried in the van by the head men of the village; the poorer inhabitants followed, and nothing could be imagined more grotesque, more sadly ludicrous than this motley crowd of tatterdemalions; some, too poor to purchase Christs, were carrying little images of the saints; others, less lucky still, were forced to hoist on long poles, for want of better, faded pieces of colored cloth and tawdry tinsel, while some had even been forced to carry hen-coops. We bent the knee respectfully as this singular procession slowly wended its way through the streets, while the odd collection of hideous and incongruous objects, and the grotesque faces of the men, lighted up by the dim, ruddy glare of the pine torches, and seen through the smoke, struck us as being more like some infernal procession revisiting this earth than a body of Christians engaged in the celebration of a religious festival.

We arrived at the alcalde's house. The sinister appearance of this Indian magistrate did not tend to soothe our apprehensions. Long gray hair, encircling a face deeply furrowed with wrinkles, flowed down behind to the middle of his back; his muscular arms were hardly covered by the sleeves of his sayal (a tunic with short sleeves); his shrunken, sinewy legs were only half covered by his flapping trowsers of calzoneras skin. On his feet were leather sandals. In such a dress this singular personage seated himself, with an air of comic grandeur, under a sort of canopy formed by the branches of xocopan (a kind of sweet-smelling laurel). The red-skin alguazils ranged themselves behind like a group of stage supernumeraries. We were now asked, "Who and what are you?" This question, delivered in bad Spanish, was put to Fray Serapio, whom his long beard, jaunty costume, and free manners had undoubtedly caused the alcalde to regard as the most suspicious of the party. The monk hesitated. The alcalde continued:

"When people come with arms to a village, it is to be presumed they have a right to carry arms. Can you prove your right?"

It was, then, to examine us as to our right of carrying arms that we had been arrested. The alcalde thought he had us in a trap, and would have an opportunity of inflicting upon us, without going beyond the strict letter of the law, some of those petty insults, for which opportunities are eagerly seized on, to satisfy the traditionary hatred of the Indians against the whites. We understood this perfectly, but we could not counterplot him. We were all obliged to make the same reply. We were traveling incognito, and had no right to carry arms. With the exception of the monk, who seemed ill at ease in his disguise, we were eager to tell our names and quality. As it was a point of the very highest importance to let the Indians know the powerful protectors we had in Mexico, the student fancied he was acting prudently when he said that he was the nephew of the most celebrated apothecary in the city. The clerk wrote down the answer, stopping every now and then to break in pieces little branches of xocopan. As for the alcalde, he seemed to triumph at having in his power five of the enemies of his race. When the student avowed his relationship to the Mexican apothecary, the wily Indian did not consider himself foiled. He seemed lost in thought; but suddenly an expression of malignant joy shot across his features as he hastily put this question to Don Diego:

"If you are the nephew of an apothecary, you must know something of botany?"

Don Diego replied in the affirmative, with an air of perfect satisfaction.