below the average, which came true.  On June 3d I asked an Indian how much longer the sun would travel on, and he told me that it ought not to be more than fifteen days.  The Tarahumares are reputed to be good weather prophets among the Mexicans, who frequently consult them upon the prospects of rain.  The Indians judge from the colour of the sun when he rises as to whether there will be rain that day.  If the crescent of the moon is lying horizontally, it is carrying much water; but when it stands up straight, it brings nothing.  This belief is shared by the Mexicans.  When the moon is full and has “a ring around,” she is dancing on her patio.  At the period of the dark moon she is dead, but will return after three days.  Eclipses are explained as collisions between the sun and the moon on the road, when they fight.

The Tarahumare men make bows and arrows, and in the central part of the country are great hunters and clever at shooting.  The fore-shaft of their arrows is made of palo hediondo, a wood used also in the making of needles.  But the people living near the pueblo of Panalachic and the Barranca de Cobre are poor shots, and their favourite weapon is the axe.  The boys still play with slings, which not so long ago were used for killing squirrels.  A club with a stone (Spanish, macana) is said to have been formerly in common use.  The grandfathers of the present generation of Nararachic had flint-tipped arrows.  The Indians also know how to prepare excellent buckskin.  They peg the hide on the ground and leave it for three days, and when it is sufficiently dry the hair is scraped off with a knife.  It is then smeared over with the brain of the animal and hung up in the sun for four days.  The next step is to wash it well in warm water in a wooden trough.  Then it is well kneaded, and two people taking hold of it draw it out of the water and stretch it well between them.  It is dried again and is then tanned with the crushed bark of the big-leaved oak-tree.

A natural cavity in a rock is chosen for a vat, in which the skin is left for two days.  After this it is well rinsed and squeezed until no water remains in it.  Two persons are required for the operation, which is always performed in a place on which the sun beats strongly, while at the same time it is sheltered from the wind by surrounding rocks.

Deer are caught in snares fastened to a bent tree, so that the animal’s foot is held, while the tree when released hoists the quarry up.  The Indians also chase deer with dogs toward some narrow passage in the track where they have placed sharp-pointed pine sticks, two feet long, against which the deer runs and hurts itself.  Blackbirds are decoyed by kernels of corn threaded on a snare of pita fibre hidden under the ground.  The bird swallows the kernel, which becomes entangled in its oesophagus and is caught.  Small birds are also shot with bow and arrows, or killed with stones.