The Tarahumare standard of beauty is not in accordance with the classic ideal as we perceive it, nor is it altogether in conformity with modern views on the subject.  Large, fat thighs are the first requisite, and a good-looking person is called “a beautiful thigh.”  Erect carriage is another essential to beauty.  In the face, the eyes attract more notice than any other feature, and the most admired ones are “the eyes like those of a mouse.”  This is the highest praise that can be bestowed upon anyone’s personal appearance.  They all like straight hair, and consider hair very ugly when it has a curl at the end.  I once asked a bright young Tarahumare how the man must look who is most admired by women, whether his mouth and nose should be large or small, etc., and he replied, “They must be similar to mine!” Aside from good looks, the women like best men who work well, just as in civilised countries a woman may look out for a good parti.

But wealth does not make the possessor more attractive to the girls.  In Nararachic was an elderly man who owned forty head of cattle and eighteen horses.  When he became a widower, he had to live with an elderly woman of bad reputation, as he could not get another woman to marry him.

The young women enjoy absolute liberty, except as regards Mexicans, against whom they are always warned.  They are told that they become sick from contact with such men.  Never are they forced to contract what would turn out to be a loveless marriage.  A beautiful Indian girl was much sought for by a Mexican.  He spoke the Tarahumare language very well, and offered to give her a good house and fine clothes and a whole handful of silver dollars.  Her brother, who was half civilised, and therefore more corrupt than the ordinary Indian, also tried to persuade her to accept the rich suitor.  But she tossed up her head and exclaimed, “Tshine awlama gatsha negale” which, freely translated, means:  “I do not like that fellow; love goes where it chooses.”

The custom of the country requires the girl to do all the courting.  She is just as bashful as the young swain whom she wishes to fascinate, but she has to take the initiative in love affairs.  The young people meet only at the feasts, and after she hag gotten mildly under the influence of the native beer that is liberally consumed by all, she tries to attract his attention by dancing before him in a clumsy way up and down on the same spot.  But so bashful is she that she persistently keeps her back turned toward him.  She may also sit down near him and pull his blanket and sing to him in a gentle low voice a simple love-song: 

    Se-(se)-ma-te re-hoy i-ru Se-(se)-ma-te re-hoy i-va
    Beau-ti-ful man to be sure, Beau-ti-ful man to be sure.

If occasion requires, the parents of the girl may say to the parents of the boy, “Our daughter wants to marry your son.”  Then they send the girl to the boy’s home, that the young people may become acquainted.  For two or three days, perhaps, they do not speak to each other, but finally she playfully begins to throw pebbles at him.  If he does not return them, she understands that he does not care for her.  If he throws them back at her, she knows that she has won him.  She lets her blanket drop and runs off into the woods, and he is not long in following her.