PLAYING THE MARIMBA.
The Indians are very fond of music and show considerable natural talent. Many native bands, especially in the army, play popular and classical music in a very pleasing way. One unique instrument, called the Marimba, is met with only in Central America and southern Mexico. It has some very pleasing tones that it is truly delightful to listen to. The larger ones are made of a frame seven or eight feet long and two and one-half feet high upon which strips of hard wood are placed, and beneath which are fastened wooden resonators for different tones. Some of them have as many as six complete octaves of tones and semitones. The sounds are produced by striking with a rubber tipped stick the strips of wood, thus resembling the xylophone. Those that I saw generally had three players, each armed with two sticks in each hand with which they struck the wood strips. Their playing was sometimes really marvellous in the dexterity with which they played even difficult runs and maintained almost perfect harmony—it seemed beyond the ability of these uneducated Indians who played entirely by ear. The tone of the Marimba is sweet or, as one writer has described it, “like several pianos and harps combined, together with a bass effect not unlike a bass viol.” The repertoire of the players is generally limited so that it becomes monotonous after a while.
Nearly all the soldiers, except officers, are men of the Indian race. Guatemala has a compulsory military law which compels every man to serve in time of war and gives the government the right to impress them into the military service when, in their judgment, the occasion demands summary measures. One of the villages visited by me had just been the scene of one of these “impressing” occasions, and the impression made was still very vivid among the inhabitants left. The military officials had swooped down upon this village, literally like the thief in the night without any warning. If their purpose had become known they would have found an Adamless village and no man at home. As it was, they captured all the men in the village who were capable of bearing arms. Thereupon there was great weeping and wailing among their fathers and mothers, wives and sweethearts. The men, however, were marched to a neighbouring village where they were allowed to fill up on “white-eye.” Their courage rose as the liquor disappeared and they soon marched away to the music of the band, shouting, “Long Live the Republic!” “Long Live El President!” Hence, while the women bewailed their lot at home, the men were eating government tortillas and drinking the Cabrera brand of patriotism, somewhere within the boundaries of the republic.
The samples of soldiers that one sees at the various commandancias, or barracks, were not very terror-inspiring although decidedly picturesque. Dressed in jumper and overalls of the familiar blue jeans, barefooted and wearing a battered old straw hat of any shape, or without shape, they looked like play-soldiers. They are like children in their artlessness, and in fact even an old Indian is a child in worldly wisdom. The man who wore a pair of shoes was pretty sure of promotion to sergeant. Many of the soldiers were mere boys not older than sixteen. The number of men under arms at that time was said to exceed twenty-five thousand, and the government claimed they could soon raise it to fifty thousand. This does not seem like a large force and yet it is as large in proportion to the population as an army of a million and a quarter would be in the United States, which contains at least fifty times as great a population.
The race generally known as Caribs, and who dwell along the shore of the Caribbean Sea, predominate at Livingston and along this coast. They have an olive complexion, round heads, abundant black hair, which is usually straight but sometimes kinky. They are also short and erect, but muscular. It has only been in recent years that they wore any clothing at all, and they are not burdened with it yet. Every place where there is water is a bathing resort, and the only bathhouses are big mahogany logs, hewn square. Sharks and alligators sometimes make it exciting for them. The Caribs have negro blood in them which dates from the foundering of an African slave ship on these shores, several centuries ago. They claim to be good catholics but still retain much of their pagan rites and superstitions; they are exclusive and seldom intermarry with the native Indians of whom Guatemala has more pure bloods than any other of the Central American republics.
A GROUP OF CARIBS.
The women wear the most picturesque costumes in Central America and are more tastily dressed than any of the native women in Mexico, with the single exception of those in Tehuantepec. They have a dark complexion—almost as dark as a mulatto—and the young women are famous for the beauty of their figure, which is as perfect as nature can make it unaided by art. They walk erect with a graceful carriage and with an elastic footstep full of grace and freedom. Nearly all have raven black hair which hangs down the back in a double braid. They are kind hearted, frank and good natured. By far the largest share of the work falls upon the shoulders of the gentler sex; but they bear their burdens with becoming fortitude and are generally loyal to their lord and master, even when the native “white-eye” takes away what little sense he has. Drunkenness is quite common. It is surprising to an American to see a native stretched at full length even in a public street in a drunken stupor. No one pays any attention to him, unless by a little kick, until the stupor passes away and he is able to navigate for himself again.
The fondness for bright colours among the native women can be observed in their extremely simple but artistic costume. The entire outfit consists of three pieces and the style does not change with the seasons. The skirt consists of a piece of cotton cloth, generally a plaid, wrapped around the hips and held in place by a sash; the waist is a square piece of figured material, sometimes richly embroidered, with a hole cut in the centre to pass the head through and the ends tucked down under the skirt. Their straight, black hair is usually braided down the back and they are both bareheaded, and barefooted, and, probably, rather empty-minded. The man may afford a pair of sandals made from a piece of sole leather and strapped on his feet, but the women seldom afford this luxury. A little washing would not injure their natural complexion. They seldom walk but go along with a peculiar swing, or jog-trot, over hill and down dale, with a heavy basket on their heads and baby swung over their shoulders. In this way they will make six miles an hour and will beat the average mule. Some of the more fortunate ones come leading or driving mules with loads almost as large as themselves, but the owners themselves walk. This gives them, however, a chance to ride on the return to their humble cottage home.
The women are not without their faults for they can smoke to their heart’s content. There is no law against it and custom seems rather to approve of the vice. It is not only a common sight to see them smoking cigarettes but cigars as well. One day I saw a mother with three children, two boys and a girl, and the oldest one not more than nine or ten years of age, each puffing away at a big fat cigar that was black enough to appal the average man smoker. There is a naturalness and simplicity in their manner that rather astonishes an American when he happens to stumble upon a group of them bathing without any regard for the simple clothing that would be considered necessary at Atlantic City, and they are not afraid of strangers either. Then one can see them nursing their babies and searching for specimens in the little youngster’s hair at the same time. Yet this absence of prudishness or unnaturalness does not mean an absence of the virtues, although morality has not yet reached an ideal stage.