The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1908-04-30
LEGEND OF THE FLOOD.
A Version of the Story of Noah's
Ark Current Among the Hui
choI Indians

Vail LuhlhollL DIS a result vi WISH
which the liberality of the late Nor
ris K. Jessup enabled him to make
the Huichol tribe of Indians Mr.
Lumholtz also obtained an interest
ing collection of articles illustrating
the domestic and religious life of
these Indians and it has been in
stalled in the American Museum of
Natural History.
The Huichols have practically
been an unknown race, living in a
remote and almost inaccessible valley
in the wilds of the Sierra Madre, In
the state of Jalisco, Mexico. They
number some 1000, and their hab-
itation is a territory about forty
miles long by twenty-five miles wide,
walled in with steep mountains
of from 5000 to 5000 feet elevation,
Here, unvisited and almost COM
pletely isolated from the outside
world, they are today said to be
living in the same state of aborigin-
al culture as when Cortez first put
his foot on the Mexican soil The
Huichols afford, therefore, fresh
and untrodden field of anthropologi-
cal research
They live mostly in circular houses
or huts made of loose stones and
mud, covered with thached roofs;
their sacred god houses are of SINH
lar shape, but much larger They
| dress in garments of their own man
ufacture.
Mr. Lumholtz was the first white
! traveller to visit and dwell for a year
or more among this hermit race
/ The circumstances of the Huichols
/, make rain matter Of prime neces-
sity and quite naturally their most
! important gods have some relation
! to providing rain enough to grow
! good crops. The Huichols are from
| the cradle to the grave more or less
occupied with prayers for water. and
much of their time is given up to
the preparation and observance of
rain-making feasts and in the fash
ioning of various symbolic offerings,
intended to PROPAGATE the gods who
are thought to have control over
! the clouds and rain.
Appeals to their gods are made
largely with the aid of arrows to
| which are attached articles en-
hlematic of the purpose of their
prayer. When the Indian wants to
hunt deer, till the soil, build a house
or marry he has to make an arrow
| ing
The arrows are stuck into the
seats of the ceremonial chairs in the
god-houses or into the straw roofs
and placed in sacred caves and spots
where some god lives.
One of the most important of the
| Huichol feasts is that of the ki'kuli.
This is small cactus plant which
grows in the central part of Mexico
| 1t is thought to be necessary to pro-
cure it every year to insure the coun-
try against drought and in October
parties of twelve or more start on a
pilgrimage to the interior.
| This journey consumes forty-three
days On the return of the kikuli
seekers with their loads of the plant
a great feasting or dancing, occupy
| ing a week or more, is held.
the tobacco gourd forms con-
spicuous part of their outfit, each
| carrying dozen or more of them.
| On their homemade straw hats
plumes are stuck
The Huichol ark is used as one of
! the extreme means of getting rain
In times of drouth it is set afloat 1t
consists of a followed log A piece
of carved wood glued on the tip is
! intended to represent deer horns; its
purpose is to entangle the craft in
the bushes when the water subsidies
and thus stop it. Inside the ark are
grains of sacred corn in multiples
| OF FIVE.
Here is the Huichol story of the
ark and flood. Long ago, before the
| white man came to the country a
Huichol was at work telling trees in
the preparation of field for plant
ing, but each day he found the trees
that he had cut down on the previous
| day had grown up again.
! Finally he discovered it was an
! old woman named Grandmother
Growth who kept restoring them.
She is the mother of the gods; the
earth belongs to her and she lives
in the under world. All vegetation
is her product, and she told the man
that he was working in vain. A
great flood was coming, she said;
it was not more than five days off
| Make a box from the big tree
as long as yourself and fit it with
good cover" she said. Take with
you grains of corn of each color
| five beans of each color, take also
| the fire and five squash stems to feed
| with, and take with you a black fe-
male dog"
The Indian did as Grandmother
Growth had told him. On the fifth
I day he had the box ready and placed
In it the things he was instructed.
| Then he entered taking with him the
! dog. and the old woman put the
cover on. Then she seated herself
| on the top of the box with a macaw
perched on her shoulder.
! The ark rode on the water one year
! toward the south the next year to-
ward the north, the third toward the
west, the fourth toward the east.
and the fifth year it rose upward and
all the world was filed with water.
The next year the water began to
subside, and the box lodged on a
mountain where it may still be
seen.
The man took off the cover and
saw that all of the country was still
full of water but the macaw and the
parrots made valleys with their