Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-15
IN SOUTHERN MEXICO
Natives Live Contentedly on
the Big Plantations.
ATTACHED TO EMPL OVERS
Rude Places Of Habitation Occupied
by the Poems.
NO EDUCATION OR AMBITION
People of the Isthmus Considered
Much More Intelligent Than
Those in Central Mexico.
NO EDUCATION OR AMBITION
BY WILLIAM Z. CURTIS
Special Correspondence of The Star and the Chicago
Record Herald.

Speciui correspondence Inc star anu Tue
Record Herald.
TONAI.A Isthmus of Tehuantepec,
April s. 1906.
The cities and towns down here resemble
those of the rest of Mexico and other parts
of Spansh-America, being laid out with
straight narrow streets, running at right
angles The houses are built of stone or
adobe, with very thick walls, which are en-
tirely blank upon the outside and are paint
ed in fanciful colors. The rooms are win
dowless, like the cells of a monastery, and
all the light and ventilation comes through
doors that open upon central courtyard.
Some of the houses are very large and have
several courtyards.
In the suburbs of the town and scattered
over the rural districts are villages of poems
occupying palm-thatched cabins such as
may be seen in tropical regions the world
over. If you will give human beings the
same needs and materials, place them in
the same conditions and circumstances, they
will do practically the same things and de-
velep similar customs and habits. This fact
is demonstrated by resemblances to be
found in widely separated parts of the
earth, in Syria and Peru, in Egypt and Ari-
IONA. in the South Sea Islands and the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec
Cabins of the Poems
These cabins have a single room. with
floor of earth and walls of bamboo poles or
some other kind of saplings. with rushes
braided between and around them. Near
the railway stations you often see the walls
made of discarded ties set on end. The
roofs are palm leaves, laid eighteen or
twenty inches thick upon rafters There
are no windows. no chimney and one rude
door sheltered by porch, matched roof.
held up by poles. The cooking is done out
side in earthen pots and a clay oven. The
women bake their tortillas, corn cakes,
on hot stones precisely as the Bedouins do
In Arabia. They have no plates, knives or
forks. but they dip their food out of the
common kettle with one big spoon, and
sometimes use leaves instead of plates.
They eat tortillas Corn eakes), frijoles
tbeans), chilli peppers), eggs chickens, plan
tains, bananas, cocoa and occasionally M t
ton, cocoanuts and all other kinds of fruits,
and they often have little gardens in which
they grow garlic, onions, lettuce, potatoes
and other vegetables.
They bring their water from the nearest
river or spring in a petroleum The
Standard OH Company has furnished water
buckets for the entire world. At the well
where Jesus talked with the woman of Sa-
maria, on the pampas of Paraguay, on the
banks of the Gauges, the Nile and the IRA
waddy its square petroleum tins are now
almost exclusively used for carrying water
as substitute for the ancient and much
houses rooted with the tin from these cans
Strengthened out: have seen the tins used
for states in the country school rooms of
Arabia, Mesopotamia and Egypt
There is no furniture in the cabin of the
peon of southern Mexico. There may be a
box or block of wood to sit on, and occa-
sionallv rude bench. The family sleep on
patates-mats woven of PUSHES They wear
very little clothing. The conventional cos
tune of man is a cotton shirt cotton
trousers, monstrous sombrero and a pair
OF sandals with soles of cowhide fastened
with thongs over the top of the foot The
women wear guipil, loose short-sleeyed
blouse reaching to their waists made of
highly colored, figured cotton; single skirt
OF red cotton reaching to their ankles, and
black shawl or scarf, called a rebosa over
their heads. They do their laundry vVorl,
at the nearest brook or river, and do it well
Tor when they dress up for a feast day thew
LOOK surprisingly clean and neat.
Ihese people are making no progress in
civilization. education or morals. The law
compels their children to attend school he
tween the ages of five and twelve but there
are no schools for them to attend except
IN the larger towns The inyariable tesfi-
mony Of close observers is that educa tiou
demoralizes them, makes them restless, dis
contented dfsobedient and unhappy They
have all they want now. Those who re-
main upon the plantations of the interior
which are still maintained In the old feudaI
style, are better off morally and physi-
cally even without education than those
VINO nave mao the advantage of schools
But l am getting upon dangerous ground
There is great moral question involved in
this proposition which is puzzling some of
the wisest and the best of men.
Attached to the Plantations.
Down In this part of the republic the
great haciendas of thousands and even hun
dreds of thousands of acres are still main
tanned with hundreds and sometimes thou
sands of retainers or poems whose ances-.
tors for generations have lived In the same,
cabins. have done the same work for the
same wages for the same employers I am
told that the average number of people
upon the plantations in the states of Chi
apas and Oaxaca is $500 including men
women and children, and some of the larger
plantations have as high as twelve and If
teen thousand A large estate or planta-
tion Is called a hacienda and the proprietor
is haciendado. He is also known as Eel
Amo, which means owner, as Pa
trone." He usually has a residence in the
City of Mexico. which is occupied by his
family during Holy week and the fash
ionable season of the year. while the months
that are most agreeable out OF doors are
spent on the plantation.
A hacienda Is usually subdivided into es-
tancias one Of which may be devoted to
sugar, another to cattle. another to corn
or coffee. The whole is under the dlrec-
ton of an administrator or manager while
each estancta has caporale. or Euperin-
tendent. AT headquarters there is an audi
tor, who looks after the finances and acts
as payfnaster; a priest, school teacher
and numerous other attaches on salary ac
cording to the size of the plantation and
the disposition of the family.
| The hacienda headquarters consist of a
group of buildings. usually inclosed within
d high wall which s a relic of the old days
and not so very long ago, when bandits
were roaming lawlessly all through this
country. The residence of the patrone is
usually an enormous building fitted up with
more or less comfort and luxury. There
are office buildings, stables, warehouses and
other necessary structures with a great
church overshadowing them all, and store
| in which is kept large stock of general
merchandise, from which the establishment
| is supplied, and which Is sold to the poems
on credit. That is the origin of the peon-
| age system. which was formerly compul-