Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-04-23
THE MUCHACHA.
A PICTURESQUE TYPE OF THE
MEXICAN COUNTRY GIRL.
Her Dress and Characteristic
Mingling Her Religious Obscr-
vances With Coquetry-Her
Married Life.

more unfrequented portions of this re-
public, writes a City of Mexico CORE
spOndent of the Providence journal, the
peasant cir! is seen in all her primitive
simplicity. AS the numbering stage
coach, with its dozen passengers,
slackens up at the adobe gate of some
hacienda, and the driver shouts his
"Buenos Diasn or words of greeting,
the first to issue from the gray-walled
hacienda is a Mexican muchacha True
to the vein of curiosity which forms a
fiber of the feminine heart, the muchacha
must see who are the new arrivals
She stands at the great gate Of the
hacienda shyly watching tie newcomers.
She is but developed child; simple,
picturesque, content; one whose face is
not freckled, whose limbs are not atten-
uated and never !,new the manacling o.
a stocking. Her hair is not golden; her
feet arc bare, and the two long braids of
ictty hair falling behind are caught at
the ends with the inevitable bit of bright
ribbon. When speaking she generally
catches the braids and filings them over
her breast and her brown, bare shoulders.
She wears 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 her native hills.
She wears only short skirt, and that in
innate, low-cut veSture of white texture
and scant pattern so well known and
seldom mentioned, which hangs sus-
pended from her nut-brown shoulders,
and is caught inside the skirt before it is
gathered i'll at the waist. She is entirely
unconscious of want of further clothing.
Among the different types of woman
in America none is more unique than the
Mexican muchacha; for she is woman
governed rather by the characteristics of
race than by the shackles of ed
ucation, coquettish from instinct, grace
full because natural The traveller re-
members well creature who watches
him with less of inquisitive curiosity than
sly coquettishness in those very black
eyes. But beyond the mere attraction of
her glances are the associations which en-
viron that creature. She is the repre-
sentative of a romantic race whose civil
cation, coeval with the palmiest days of
Egypt and Persia, patakes strangely Of
the Orient. Like her sister on the
Ganges, the Nile and the Euphrates, she
makes her tortillas of unleavened bread /;
she carries water on her head as grace
fully as Rebecca, and spins like Pcne-
lope. But her race has bent below the
futtcring of cross emblaZoned flag,
which, wherever it has gone, has left be-
hind it trail of desolation. 1t was be
! meath that Castilian flag that the native
American woman became Spanish
in the olden time of strength
and conquest; and unchanged
in manner, appearance or taste, she has
acquired the new Characteristic coquetry
50 essentially Spanish. While the pretty
oval face, the bright black eyes, and the
quick, glib tongue of the Mexican
muchacha is the same as it was five hun
drcd or a thousand years ago, she has
attained other characteristics brought tC
her by the chivalric soldiers of Cortez.
The entire life of this little lady is
wrapped up in her church, her guitar
her fandango, her cigarette, her lover
and Oftentimes her fan. When used
by her, this latter is weapon of immense
power and caliber. Behind it she keeps
the ver-loadcd batteries of those black
brilliant eyes, and she can carry by
means of motions made by her fan either
hope or horror to the heart of Eer lover
But among the distinctively Mexican
/ peasant girls, the language of the fan is
little understood, and certainly not as
often practiced as among the scnoritas
who are bellies in the cities and towns.
Still, when they once master this flutter-
ing language they soon become adopts.
The muchacha is intensely religious in
her own peculiar way Over her bed is a
niche with her favored saint, to whom she
burns candles, and before which
she kisses her tiny cruciix and tells the
beads of her rosary. TO her the confess
sion-boX is holy ground, and the bowl of
holy water at the door of her favorite
church is sacramental. Still the monot-
ony of her service wears on the young
heart, and oftentimes while in her church.
pGttering her prayers in a low humble,
crossing herself with lightning rapidity,
and glibly telling her beads, she is all
the time keeping up an exchange OF
messages with her eyes with her lover
kneeling some distance off. The church
often becomes the tTysting- ground where
notes a,e slyly exchanged and where APP,
pointments are made for future meetings
The guitar is thummed exquisitcly by
some of these girls, but their singing is
seldom sweet.
Life would lose half its charm to thu
muchacha if she could not have her fan
dango. The DANA is her passion, and
her ear and her feet are ever alert to tho
thin strains of the guitar. Red calico il
the predominating costume among
the ladies, and among the gen
tlemen white unbeached cottor
or manta suits. The room, gen
orally low-roofed and with dirty floor
is lighted with numerous allow-dips,
while typical orchestra of three or fou,
guitars keeps compass for the flying fee
weaving the mysterious mazes of thu
swinging, swaying danzas, the incom
pressible jaraba and other popular dances
Her cigarette is almost as indispeusa
BILE as her lover. Without it her primi
tive meals lack seasoning She can twir
the cigarette paper as easily as she turns
round her finger her Ramon or Francisco
her Ricardo or Felipe-whatever tn
lovers name may be. That feat of twist
ing the tobacco into slip of pape
about two inches square is with difficult,
learned by foreigners, still the swarth,
beauty can with three or four rapid
movements of four fingers and he
thumbs roll up cigarette while she i
flirting, crush flat the tied ends
ard ask for light, all Will
most absolute grace. Her lover is at
tracted and repealed by the same centri
fugal and centrptt i laws which Obtain
the word over in the solar system of
xunonanIe louo nnon ,,,orriol bar do