A speech is also often made in the beginning of the feast, when much the same sentiments are expressed.  The orator tells the people to follow the good example of the host, that sacrificing and dancing may go on here, there, and everywhere, so that the gods will get plenty to eat and grant the prayers of the Tarahumares.  He strongly admonishes them to keep away from women, as otherwise the value of the feast would be lost.  This day belongs to Tara Dios, and nothing else is to be thought of.  If anyone transgresses this command, he will have to give an ox or a sheep and tesvino, to make the feast all over again.

While the dancing and singing, sacrificing and speechmaking, are going on, the people behave with decorous solemnity and formality.  The ceremonies are never interrupted by unseemly conduct; everybody deports himself with grave sobriety, and refrains from loud talking and laughing and from making any disrespectful noise.  But after the gods have been given their share, the people go in, no less energetically, for enjoying themselves.

Food and tesvino are never distributed by the same man, nor are men and women waited on by the same functionary; in other words, one man is appointed for each sex, to dispense the tesvino, and two others to serve the food.

They eat but little of the solids, as it is customary for the guests to take home their portions, the women bringing jars and baskets along for the purpose.  Little or nothing of the tesvino is spared, and it is the avowed intention and aim of everybody to get “a beautiful intoxication.”  They all like to get drunk.  An Indian explained to me that the drunken people weep with delight, because they are so perfectly happy.  Every Tarahumare has in his heart a cross which Tata Dios placed there long, long ago, and this cross they respect.  When drunk they remember Tata Dios better.  At their feasts they sit alongside of him and drink with him.  The women sit alongside of the Moon and remember ancient times.

But unfortunately this blissful stage of their intoxication does not last long, and then the animal nature in them manifests itself.  Under the influence of the liquor, men and women rapidly lose that bashfulness and modesty which in ordinary life are such characteristic traits of their deportment.  Furthermore, whatever grudge one man may’ have against another now crops out, and very likely a fight will ensue, in which the two opponents recklessly pull each other’s hair and punch each other’s faces.  Sometimes in such an outbreak of unreasoning animalism one of the combatants will seize a stone and batter the other one’s head to crush it.  Afterward, when sober again, the murderer may deeply deplore his deed—­if he remembers it at all.

Mothers, when overcome by the spirit of the feast, may unawares allow their babies to fall out of the blankets and into the fire.  Children may frequently be seen with bruises and scars which they carry as mementoes of some tesvino feast.  I know one man who had no hair on one side of his head, having when a child been a victim of such an accident.  But seldom, if ever, is a child allowed to become fatally injured.