The Uncontaminated Tarahumares—­A Tarahumare Court in Session—­The Power of the Staff—­Justice has its Course—­Barrancas—­Excursion to the Gentiles—­Tarahumare Costumes Simple and Inexpensive—­Trincheras in Use Among the Tarahumares.

We were lucky enough to secure a guide who, spoke the Tarahumare language very well, and our next stop was at the pueblo of Cusarare (a Spanish corruption of Usarare, usaka = eagle), an Indian village situated in a rather rough country full of weathered porphyry rocks.  We made camp a few miles outside of the village and sent the guide to prepare the people for our coming.  There had recently been considerable talk among the Mexicans of the wild people in the deep gorges, called barrancas, and it was with no little anticipation that I approached the country now immediately before us.  There were no Mexicans living in Cusarare, nor in the country ahead of us; in fact, with the exception of the small mining camp in Barranca de Cobre, there were none within fifty miles to the south, and almost an equal distance from east to west.

Indian pueblos throughout Mexico are almost abandoned for the greater part of the year.  I refer, of course, only to those which have not yet become Mexican settlements.  The first thing the missionaries in the early times had to do was to force the Indians to leave their scattered ranches and form a pueblo.  To make a place a pueblo they had to build a church.  The Indians were pressed into service to erect the building, and kept at work, if necessary, by a troop of soldiers who often accompanied the missionaries and in this way assisted them in spreading the gospel.

From the missionaries’ point of view this was a very practical arrangement; but the purpose of having the Indians remain in the villages has not been accomplished to this day.  Only the native-chosen authorities, who are obliged to reside there during their term of office, form something like a permanent population in the pueblos.  The natives come together only on the occasion of feasts, and on Sundays, to worship in the way they understand it.  Someone who knows the short prayer, generally the gobernador, mumbles it, while the congregation cross themselves from time to time.  If no one present knows the prayer, the Indians stand for a while silently, then cross themselves, and the service is over.

After church they meet outside for the second purpose that brings them to the village, namely, the transaction of whatever judicial business may be on hand, generally the adjustment of a theft, a marriage, etc.

I arrived in the pueblo on a Sunday, and a great many Indians had come in.  Easter was approaching, and every Sunday during Lent, according to early missionaries’ custom, the so-called “Pharisees” make their appearance.  These are men who play an important part in the Easter festival, which always lasts several days.  They paint their faces hideously, tog themselves up with feathers on their sombreros, and carry wooden swords painted with red figures.  Such ceremonies were a clever device of the Jesuits and Franciscan missionaries to wean the Indians from their native feasts by offering them something equally attractive in the new religion they were teaching.  The feasts are still observed, while the teachings are forgotten.