Passaic City record., 1891-09-12
MEXICO'S PEONS.
SOME OFTHEIR PECULIARITIES
AND CHARACTERISTIC
They Resemble Japanese in Looks
and Customs-Their Works of
Art in Pottery, Straw
and Lacquer.

The bulk of the Indian population Of
North America is in Mexico, says Frank
G.. Carpenter in the New York World.
The United States contains only about a
quarter of million Indians. Mexico
has four millions, whose blood has the
bluest of aboriginal tints, and her mezi-
tos, or people who have come from the
intermixture of the whites and the In
dians, are five millions more. There are
about eleven millions of people in Mexico
and two millions of these are pure white.
These and the mezitos govern the
country. The Indian who originally
owned the land is only the silent partner
whose name is not on the business sign
and receives none of the proceeds. The
Indians of Mexico are unknown to the
world. The term Mexican as it is gen
orally used describes only the ruling
class, and the books that have been
written about the country have left out
the most interesting part of the popula
ton.
The Indians of Mexico are not at all
like our savages. 1t is question
whether they come of the same race,
and they look more like the offspring of
the Egyptians or the Japanese than of
the Mongolians, who are in face and
form much like the Indians of the United
States. Mexico IS more like the Orient
than the Occident. Its common people
live in huts like those you see to-day on
the banks of the Nile, and they are of
the same type as those used by their fore
fathers in the days of the Montezumas.
Their dress is not unlike that of the
people of India and Egypt, and their
customs and habits are in many respects
the same. / see here every day features
that make me think of the Japanese, and
the skill shown by these Mexican Indians
in pottery and art work indicates that
they are of mixed Japanese origin. Some
of the pottery of Guadelajara Is beauti-
fully decorated and artistically shaped,
and the most famous of Mexican sculp-
tors has japanese features. This mans
name is Penduro and he lives at Guadela-
jara, which, by the way is a city of
100, 200 people, situated in the western
part of the country and in the centre of
art and culture in Mexico. 1t is the
Athens of the republic and the finest art
works of all kinds of Mexican make are
turned out there.
Pandura is a wonder. He can take a
piece of black clay, and in one sitting of
several hours he will model for you
bust of yourself which is perfect like
ness, and which will not be more than
three or four inches high if you so de-
sire. I have been in his studio. It is a
hut of sun burned brick, and he squats
cross-legged on the floor just like a
Japanese. His only tools are his hands
and little knife, much like caseknife.
He has a lump of clay on board in
front of him, and he works away as he
talks. turning out his wonderful photo
graphs in clay.
He made remarkable statuette of
Emma Juch, the actress, when she was
here, and his types of Mexican life fairly
speak and act. He will, am told, go
to the Chicago Exposition and if he does
predict for him that his fame will be
international. speak of him here, how
ever, as type of class of Mexican In
dians. He has the features of Japan
ese.
As class the Mexican Indians are
perhaps the poorest people on this con-
tinent. Three hundred years ago they
were the richest, and Montezuma gave
Cortez plates of gold and silver as big as
wagon wheels, and these people made
his soldiers spurs of gold for their horses.
Since then they have been the slaves of
their conquerors. They have been op-
pressed and beaten and worked for gen
erations, and it is only within few
years that they have had the chance to be
anything else. AS they are to-day, hun
dreds of thousands of them are hopelessly
in debt, and are as much debt-slaves as
are the debtors of Siam.
Millions of them live from hand to
mouth, and only the fewest have what
the American negro of the South would
consider competency. Peonage or
debt-slavery was abolished in Mexico in
1873, but in practice it still prevails.
These Indians-many of them-are hon.
orable, and all of them are great lovers
of home and the locality in which they
live. The huts which they occupy on
the farms of their master creditors have
been the homes of their families for gem
erations, and though they are not bound
by law to work out their debts they do
30 and incur others, SO that they keep
themselves and their families in bondage
for years to come. They have no hesi-
fancy about going again into debt when
once free, and Americans who are trying
to farm here on our methods tell me it is
almost impossible to keep their men un-
less they are their debtors.
The Mexican, however, spends but
little upon himself or his house. The
houses of the poor are huts or novels,
differing according to the locality. On
the Mexican plateau, where there is
little wood, the Indians live in low,
square, one-story huts of sun-dried
brick, often constructed without win
dows. These novels are like great mud