Norwich bulletin., 1916-04-25
TIE. WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Society

Mexican lnGians-There are more Indians living today within the terri tory originally comprising Mexico than ever existed at any one time in all the rest of the Western Hemisphere com bined, according to bulletin issued today by the National Geographic So- ciety of Washington.
 Of the 15,0O0,000 inhabitants of Mexico fully 3S per cent are pure ln- dians, and 43 per cent of mixed bhod, only IS per cent being whites con tinues the bulletin.
 These six million Indians, many oi whom are descendants of that wonder full race the AztecS, are divided into many linguistic families and tribes, the l numbers varying according to the standards of differentiation adopted by | each enthnologist. Some authorities group them into fourteen families, with dialects, while others make sixteen family divisions, subdivided into one | hundred. thirty-two tribe=.
 The degrees of civilization to be | found among the many tribes are as- | tonishing, ranging from the abject | Scri Indians of Sonora, as pitiably un- l developed as the Indians of Terra del | Fuego, to the highly developed and | splendi specimens of manhood found | among the Nahuatl and Maya tribes. 'The finest examples of aboriginal | civilization on the North American | continent were to be found in the l neighborhood of the present City of | Mexico with the possible exception of | that prehistoric race of temple build CTS whose ruins dot the Yucatan pen l insUla- It was on the site of the
 capital that the Toltecs left their inn print from $50 A. D. to the twelfth l century when the Chichimecs, a cruder
 tribe, replaced them, not by conquest | but because the Toltecs died out, some
 antiquarians attributing their gradual ! +1 Tla ,F ,N,,I
 que, the insidious drink that hlI ever | been the curse of that country.
 l Then came the highly civilized Acolhuas, and a few years later, before
 the opening of the thirteenth century } the Aztec began to pour in, leaving ir their wake, as thcy came uip the plateau, the remarkable structures now
 know as the ruins of Casas Grandes
 They built Tula, fifty miles north oi l Mexico City, and eventually founded Tenochtitlan, on a site selected fol
 them by the gods, according to legend the sign being an eagle perched on {
 clump of cacti, with a serpent in its
 talons. It is this sign which remain! [ today the national emblem, appearine i, both on the coins and on the flag O . Mexico.
 One of the most interesting legend
 about the tribes from which the In = dlans of today are descended is tha 6 | recorded of the Colhuas, who are sup posed to have enslaved the Aztecs dur ing the latters migratory march u
 the plateau. The conquerors soon re
 leased their enemies because they wer - mortified at the Aztecs' custom of offer - ing human sacrifices to their gods. 2 Tt was largely to the cooperatio l of the Tlaxcalans, a neighboring trib'
 that Cortez owed his triumph over rtl " Aztecs. The latter were as brave an ,+ as ChiValrouS soldiers as were th ' Spanish adventurers who enjoyed th S decisive advantage of gunpowder an el horses, both of which were unknow
 to the natives. The generosity of tt
 Aztecs as fighting men Is exemplife IF in a single incident. Learning tn: |, the enemy was without food, the Me1 -a jeans dispatched an ample supply
 provisions, because they ScornN1 Ee fight starving foe!
 "The majority of the pure-bloodt
 Indians of Mexico are a quiet, som F. what melancholy people. Even to holidays, of which there are 131 on u iu Mexican calendar, they move silent ~ barefooted or wearing woven sanda IL their shoulders covered with the
 striped sarapes, and the women wi
 their dingy blue rebosas wrapped abo oy them. In attire the young girls, Ii ve the children of Holland, are miniatI r replicas of their mothers.
 "The pure blooded Indian of ( W remote regions untouched by civiliz us ton Is more frequently than otherwi
 a stalwart individual of upright cha
 acter, moral, honest, and loyal Q n- of the finest examples of his race VI at Benito Juarez, a member of the "a otecas tribe of Oaxaca. He was
 turns a shepherd, student of divi ns ity, governor of Oaxaca, minister he Justice. and finally president of t
 republic.
 'Porfirio Diaz, the outstanding rd ure in Mexican history during the li np quarter of the nineteenth century, W
 also born in Oaxaca and according - his official biography was one-foul res Indian, however, some genealogi hold that he was nearly three-four' ,e? Indian