Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1886-05-21

1Iexico's Peasant Girl.
s. q them oreunfr ented portionsol
this republic The peasant girl IS seen IL.
an her primitive simplicity AS the
numbering stage coach, with. is dozen
seneers, slackens up at the adobe
gate 81 some hacienda and the driyea
shouts his "Buenos Dias!,' OF wordsoit
greeting, the first to issue from The.
gray-walled hacienda is . Mexican mu
chacha. True to the vein Of curiosity
which ssorms q fiber Of the feminine
heart ever since The day that curiosi
81 led Mother Eve 70. taste the forbid:
den fruit, the much must sec Who
are the new arrivals. n.
She stands at the great gate Of the
hacienda shylY watching the new
corners. She is but q developed child:
simple, picturesque, content: ona
whose face IS not freckled, whose
limbs ara not attenuated ard never
know the manacling Of stocking
her i hair IS not golden; her feet
bare, and the two long braids 81 jetty
hair falling behind are caught at the
ends with the inevitable bit of bright
ribbon. When speaking she generally
catches the braids and fiings them
over her breast and her brown, bare
shoulders. She rears no Pompadour,
no Grecian coil, and no bangs, but
her hair, parted in the middle, is as
glossy and black as the famous
atzabatche of the native hills. She
wears only q short skirt, and that
intimate low-cut vestures of white
texture and scant pattern so we'll
known and seldom mentioned, which
hangs Suspended from her nut-brown
shoulders, and is caught inside the
skirt before it is gathered in at the
waist. She is entirely unconscious OF
want of further clothing.
Among the different types of wom-
en- Ill America none is more unique
than the Mexican Muchacha; for she
IS q woman governed rather by the
characteristics Of q race than by the
shackles ofeducation, coquettish from
instinct, graceful becausenatural. The
traveller remembers we'll a creature
who watched him with less of inquisi-'
tive curiosity than sly coquettishness
in those very black evey. But beyond
the mere attraction OF her chances are
the associations which environ that
creature. She is the representation
OF aromantic race whose civilization,
coeval with the palmiest days OF Egypt
and Persia, partake strangely OF the
Orient. Like her sisters on the Gan
ges,. the Nile, and the Euphrates, she
makes her tortillas or unleavened
bread; she carries water on her head
as gracefully as Rebecca, and spins
like Penelope.
But her race has bent below the
t1uttering of a cross emblazoned flag.
which, wherever it has gone, has left
behind it a trail ofdesolation. twas
beneath that Castilian flag that the
native American woman became Span
lsh in the olden time of strength and
conquest; and unchanged in manner,
or taste, she has acquired
the new characteristic coquetry so es-
sentially Spanish. While the pretty,
oval face, the bright black eyes, and
the quick, glib tongue OF the Mexican
is the same as it was 500
or l 900 years ago, she has attained
other characteristics brought to her
by the chivalric soldiers of Cortez.
Once married her domestic surround
ings are such as she would have them
be, for she knows no better.
Her domestic system may be
primitive. She has no chairs, no clos
cts, no stoves, no tin or glassware,
and no soap. Her cooking, Celebrated
Tor its savory character, is carried on
in alias, or pots of brown ca h over
3 brasero, or open. brick fireplace.
The great national dish, frijoles-
0eans-is not prepared by her as it
would be by her golden-haired and
blue-eyed Boston sister-with rich
norseis of pork
The muchacha soaks and steams the
rijoles for two days or so, and then
cooks them with onions and season
ngs, and serves them hot from a fat
;azuela, or earthern frying-pan and
covered with thick gravy. Her tor
are fat, round cakes of
:orn-flour, toasted over the charcoal;
hey contain no yeast or bicarbonate
these tortillas, curled up, are
Used to scoop the frijoles like a spoon,
'niy the spoon is eaten each time.
Every Mexican peasant girl is an
sdept in the cooking OF atole, or corn
neal Cruel, euchilades, and tamales,
picy preparation wrapped in the
'liant tartillas, and she is also good
Judge of Mexico national beverages
'u!que and n1ezcal.-Mexico Cor.
Providence Journal.