The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-15
SIERRE MADRElNATIVES
DR. CARL LUMHoLTz SPENT
 FIVE YEARS WITH THEM.
Found Many Strange Customs and Habits-Most Peculiar Court ships Conducted by the Girl
 and Not the Man.

and Not the Man.
 Dr. Lumhoitz's expeditions to the northwest part of Mexico, the region of the Sierra Madre del Norte, were first prompted by the desire to discover wnetn- CT there might not remain among the secluded Indian tribes some oescenoahis of the old race of cliff dweliers. who have left their traces in the well AnoMh ruins in our own Southwest, says The New York Tribune In his first expeol- ton into the States of Sonora and Cnui- huahua. in the winter of 1900. he came upon ruins of terraces. Notifications ana caves. some of which had evidently been used as dwellings, and others as purlai places In 1891, after an interruption Tn the work of exploration, he came upon cave dwellers among the Tarahumare h. dians. and, disbanding his party, re- mained to study them alone until the sum mer of 1893. These people. he found' oia not give evidence of the civilization wnicn is attested by the remains or the ancient cliff dwellers in the Southwestern States and Northern Mexico, differing from them in their unsociable, ungregarious and more rowing habits. and showing no sug- gestion of the older skill in their arts and ! industries. He makes a decided dcnial of the existence of any relation between these two people on the basis of the evil dence collected. But, though this quashed the surmise with which these explorations were begun, it did not by any means de- crease the interest or lessen the value of further study. Cave dwellers of the simpler sort are still to be found, unless we are mistaken. within the United States, among the T,,l i,,f nfo hra pnh of the Colorado canyon. But the Tarahu- mare Indians have been almost unknown; they occupy a territory stretching over 200 miles, from the neighborhood of Tenn osaohnic south to Guadalupe y Calco. and from fifty to 150 miles in width, and there are still some 25.000 of them left Re turning to his single handed explorations in March, 1894. Dr. Lumholtz remained among these people for year and half in all, and then passing south, visited the extensive tribes of Tepehuanes, spent ten months among the Coras and Hui chols, and then, nearing the City of Mex | leo, made a further study of the Teracos. In 1898 he returned to the Tarahumares and Huchols for four months. Going among the Indians unaccompanied, he was able to gain their confidence. which | is no easy task in the face of their dis- trust of the white man and their especial and even religious horror of one who came for photographs and skulls. who | dug in their mounds and took notes in season and out. The habits, conditions. dialects, music and customs of the exist | ing inhabitants. the archaeological re- mains and the plants, animals and birds | of the region were all carefully observed and noted. Collections of specimens were sent home and a complete record was kept of meteorological observations. From time to time the results were published in bulletins of the American Geograph- ical Society and of the American Museum of Natural History, under whose auspices the expeditions were made, and in other periodicals of this country and Europe | In these two volumes we now have comprehensive digest of five years of re- markable work presented with care and detail to the untechnical reader.
 | The Tarahumares live for the most part on the highlands, where, though the win ter is more severe and sometimes induces a change to the barranca, the rainfall can
 be depended upon with greater certainty. Rain is of the greatest necessity to them. Animal life is not plentiful in the sierra, so that the products of the soil become their main supply. Corn is cultivated
 generally The Father Sun and Mother Moon must be propitiated in time or drouth by a curious ceremonial form Of dance, led by a singing shaman, or med tcine man, and continued by the com munity for a night or two. The ruturbd. supposed to have been taught by the tur- key and the yumari, less serious dance, attributed to the invention of the deer, are the most important forms. They may
 be undertaken at the instance of the sha- man, or on advice from a neighboring community that Tato Dios has signified that drouth can be warded off only by sacrifices and dancing. Another reli- gious ceremony which enters largely into the life of the Tarahumares is the wor- ship of a species of small cacH, which they call hikuh, and which, when eaten, especially after a fast, produces a state of ecstasy. The Huichols further south, have the same cult, though their wor- l ship is more elaborate. Hikuli Is pow erful protector and brings luck. in games and hunting; Is a safeguard against so- cery, and is invested with a highly rev. | erenced personality. The plant Is not in | digenous, and can be had only on the distant plateaus of Eastern Chihuahua. The pilgrim party of hikuli hunters con- | sume about a month on their sacred ex- petition. On their return a religious dance Is undertaken, accompanied by the sha- mans singing and rasping on a gourd
 with a notched stick. HikuH has to be
 renewed at least every four years. In
 some parts of the country the shaman
 draws a figure in the sand near the
 gourd which so resembles ancient ritu-
 alistic photographs found in Arizona as
 to lead Dr. Lumholtz in this instance
 to acknowledge a relation with the older
 civilization.
 In marriage customs the Tarahumares
 assign the privilege of choice to the wo-
 man, which she signifies by dancing be-
 fore the man of her fancy at feast Af-
 terward she will be sent to the young
 mans home, where their courtship con
 sists of two or three days of bashful
 silence, ending in the woman's throwing
 pebbles playfully. If the young man does
 not fancy his admirer ne need not return
 them If he throws them back, they en-
 ter on period of protracted and sue
 cessve family feasts. characterized by
 much speechmaking and drinking of tes-
 vino Among the Christian Tarahumares
 this rite is supplemented by the padre s
 services whenever he may happen to make
 one of his ,nfrequent visits.
 The shamans are physicians as we'll as
 priests, and, though the Tarahumares
 are remarkably healthy, they are con-