The scene is one of great animation.  As many as two hundred people may assemble, among them women and children.  At the gathering-point, which is called in Tarahumare “the betting-place,” all the bets are made, and here the race is started and concluded.  Here the managers also place a row of stones, one stone for each circuit to be run, and whenever a circuit is completed one stone is taken away.  In this way the count is kept.  The runners walk about wrapped in their blankets like the rest of the people.  They have had nothing to eat all day but pinole and tepid water, and their legs have been rubbed with warm water in the morning by the managers.

When finally all the people have arranged their stakes the gobernador steps forward and makes a speech, in which he specially exhorts the runners not to throw the ball with their hands; if they do, they certainly will go to hell!  He also warns them against cheating of any kind.

At a given signal, quick as lightning, the runners throw off their blankets, and one man in each party, previously selected, throws his ball as far as he can, and all the runners start after it.  A second ball is always kept in reserve, in case the first should be lost.

The racers wear rattles of deer-hoofs and bits of reeds tied together on a strip of leather, which they stick in the backs of their girdle or hang over their backs.  The magic rattling keeps them from falling asleep while running, so they say; besides, the deer-hoofs lend them the swiftness of the stag.  Some runners adorn themselves with feathers from various birds, preferably the macaw and the peacock, tying them to short sticks.  The few Tarahumares who have ever seen a peacock think a good deal of this bird, because it is considered light-footed and mystic, being foreign to their country.  Some runners may be seen who paint their faces and legs with white chalk, near Batopilas, for instance.

They do not run at an extraordinary speed, but very steadily, hour after hour, mile after mile.  Good runners make forty miles in six or eight hours.  At one race, when they covered according to calculation twenty-one miles in two hours, I timed the leading runner and found that he made 290 feet in nineteen seconds on the first circuit, and on the next in twenty-four seconds.  At a race rehearsal I saw them cover four miles in half an hour.

The public follows the race with great enthusiasm from beginning to end, the interest growing with each circuit.  Many begin to follow the runners, shouting to them and urging them on.  They also help them by pointing out the ball so that they can kick it without stopping to look for it.  The wives of the contestants heat water and prepare pinole, which they hold out in drinking-gourds to the men as they pass.  The latter stop for a few seconds to partake of this their favourite dish; and if this cannot be done, the tepid water is thrown over the shoulders of the runners, by way of refreshing them.  As darkness comes on, torches of resinous pine wood are lighted and carried along to illuminate the path for the runners, that they may not stumble, making the scene one of extreme picturesqueness, as these torchbearers, demon-like, hurry through the forest.