We slept and ate at the house of the presidente, an old mestizo of rather forbidding manners but kindly spirit.  Our cases came rather slowly and a deal of coaxing, argument, and bribes were necessary to secure them.  Here we gave a trifle, a few centavos, to each subject.  The policy was bad, and we abandoned it with reference to all subsequent populations.  Naturally the natives were hostile to our work.  They thought that we were measuring them for their coffins; that they would be forced into the army; that disease would result; that an uncanny influence was laid upon them; that witchcraft might be worked against them.  After having had a lot of trouble with many of our subjects, we were surprised one day to have the oldest man of the village, Antonio Calistro, born in 1813, still so hale and hearty that he works his own fields, come in for measurement and photographing.  He still wears the old style of dress:  a loose jacket with wide sleeves made of dark blue woolen cloth, gathered around the waist by a closely-woven cotton belt; short, wide-legged trousers of buckskin.  He is the only man left in the village who wears his hair after the old fashion; that on top of his head in front was combed together and braided into a little tail, while that on the sides and back of the head was made into a longer braid.  When we asked him how it was that he was not afraid to undergo our measurement and photographing, we learned that someone had told him that the purport of the work was to send information to the Pope in Rome as to how his Otomi children looked, and from respect for the Holy Father the old man of eighty years had walked in from his distant farm to be measured and photographed.

A curious fact in respect to the Otomis resulted from our study.  The men, apparently of pure blood, presented two quite different types.  There are many who are as little as the women; these present almost the type already given as that of the women, but are a little lighter in color.  The second type is tall, sometimes over 1,700 millimeters.  It is lighter in color, presenting at times a light brownish-yellow shade.  Some indians of this large type have white skins, blotched with disagreeable red or purple.  The eyes of these large men are usually widely-spaced, and the face appears rounder than in their smaller brethren.  All the Otomis of both types, men and women, have astonishingly big heads, and many dwarfish individuals would require a 7-1/4 hat.

[Illustration:  THE CHURCH; HUIXQUILUCAN]

[Illustration:  OTOMI INDIAN; HUIXQUILUCAN]

One night during our stay we had a grand illumination.  It was St. Martin’s Eve.  During the afternoon the men and boys planted dead trees in the plaza and streets, and filled the branches with bunches of dry brush.  At dusk we walked up to the crest before the church.  All through the valley the men and boys had been busy, and as darkness settled down, blaze after blaze sprung forth until every hillside