Chapter V: Northwestern Mexico

In entering Mexico by the railway through Laredo, near the eastern end of the boundary, we took the shortest route. If we had entered through El Paso, we should have gone down through the immense state of Chihuahua, with its huge cattle ranches. Since Boquilla Dam in Chihuahua stores up the largest reservoir of water in North America, that state will become, with irrigation, fertile and very important. But the landscape now is much the same as that farther east—dreary, spiny, dry—with mountains to be climbed. On the El Paso route we should have crossed the state of Durango, with many mines. Between this line and the one on which we are traveling lie Coahuila, much like southern Texas, and Zacatecas, a mining state. In the end this route would have brought us to the same place that we shall reach through San Luis Potosí.

Instead of taking either of the lines of the Mexican National Railways, we might have come down by the Southern Pacific from the western end of Arizona, and found ourselves in the state of Sonora. That, too, is much like the other states bordering on the United States. The Southern Pacific goes down through the slender west-coast states of Sinaloa and Nayarit (formerly the territory of Tepic) to Guadalajara, capital of Jalisco, which we shall reach by the other route.

Keystone View Co., Inc.

In the state of Durango some of the silver mines are located in very
rugged country. Did you ever see a suspension bridge like this?
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There are many Chinese along the west coast, and now a few in other parts of Mexico. Most of them are merchants; others are market gardeners, and in the capital we shall see Chinese restaurant keepers. Some people think that Japan wishes to control Mexico, because there are Japanese colonies on the west coast, just as there are on our Pacific slope. But Japanese holdings in Mexico are really much smaller than ours. Some of western Mexico is very fertile. In one recent year 2,048 carloads of potatoes left Mexico by the west-coast line. Cantaloupes, tomatoes, and other fruits and vegetables are sent by the trainload to the United States just when winter makes them high-priced and hard to get in our own land.

We must not forget Lower California. It is one of Mexico’s two territories. The other is Quintana Roo, far away on the eastern side of the peninsula of Yucatan. Some day perhaps both these territories will become states. Long, slim Lower California, though it is about as long and half as wide as our own California, has no railroads. Its entire population is only 60,000. The northern part of the peninsula is better developed than the rest and more nearly like the United States. The middle part is dry and not very useful. The southern end is fertile, but less developed than the north. It produces cotton, oil, pearls, and other valuable things, but it needs railways and roads to take them to the world markets.

The Yaqui Indians

In the state of Sonora are the very interesting Yaqui Indians. Some members of this warlike tribe live in Arizona; they are closely related to the fierce Apaches of our Southwest. But most of them, at least those still untamed, are in the southern part of Sonora. Ever since the white man came to Mexico the Yaqui have fought to keep him off their lands. Most American Indians did that, of course, but the Yaqui are famous because as a tribe they have never been conquered. In all the western hemisphere, the only primitive peoples equally independent are the San Blas Indians in Panama, and others far up the Amazon.

The Yaqui believe themselves to be descended from a wolf. They live to fight. “Centuries of semi-starvation, of tyranny, of exposure to burning heat, desert thirst, mountain storms, constant fighting and suffering have produced men as tough and brutal as the cactus, as swift of foot, wild, and canny as their brother the coyote.” They can run ten miles an hour for hours at a time. Hidden among their mountains, they are terrible enemies and hard to defeat. The state government of Sonora pays them money every month to keep them from going on the warpath. Even though a bounty of a hundred Mexican dollars has been offered for any Yaqui alive or dead, they are still independent.

Porfirio Diaz, who pacified all the rest of Mexico, could never make the Yaqui recognize the Mexican Government. He sent expeditions against them. His soldiers killed many of them; thousands were taken prisoner and shipped to far-off Yucatan. There they were made to labor almost as slaves on the henequen plantations of the _tierras calientes_, the hot country, and many died from brutal treatment or because of the climate, or by suicide.

But the brutality of the Diaz soldiers only made the Yaqui hate more bitterly those who wished to rule over them. If a little kindness had been tried, there might perhaps have been better results. Now and then, within recent years, the Yaqui have made peace with the Mexican authorities. Many of them, known as _mansos_ (“tame ones”), may now be found in every Sonoran village, and even in neighboring Arizona. As soldiers in the Mexican army they are among the bravest, though they are too independent to be very well disciplined. They make hard-working laborers, better than most of the Indian tribes. But the _bravos_ (“wild ones”) in the hills of southern Sonora continue to stir up trouble. The Calles government, tired of trying to make peace with them, decided to conquer or exterminate them.

Strange as it may sound, the Yaqui call themselves Christians. Long ago Spanish missionaries went back into the deserts of Sonora where soldiers feared to go. Though they were unable to talk with the Indians, they told them by signs the story of Christ. Naturally, the Indians did not understand all of it, and so to-day, when they try to present a Passion Play at Easter time, they distort it queerly. They carry about a rag doll to represent Jesus, and there are half a dozen others meant to stand for Judas. It is a very barbaric ceremony, with many gaudy colors, strange Indian music, and other semi-savage features. Most of the participants get drunk on maguey whiskey.

The Tame Indians

There are Indians living in Mexico who have never seen a white man. Parts of the states of Michoacán and Guerrero have never been explored by white men. But the great majority of the Indians of Mexico are peaceful and even timid. Although it is about one-fourth as large as the United States, Mexico has only one-seventh as many people; but of the fifteen million about six million are full-blooded Indians, and among the eight million _mestizos_ (half-breeds) there is more Indian than European blood. These tame Indians of many tribes, breeds, and tongues are quite different from the unconquered Indians of the Sonora desert. The Indian of the Mexican plateau is a farmer, not a hunter. He is quiet, very solemn, so peaceful as to be almost servile. He dreads responsibility, and really likes to be a kind of half-slave to his employer, to whom he brings his problems and troubles. He seems to have been suppressed so long, under Aztec emperors, Spanish viceroys, and dictators like Diaz, that he is unable to decide things for himself, preferring to have someone always tell him what to do.

If we compare the crowd at a Mexican railway station with our recollection of one at a station in Texas, the people of the two regions do not seem at all of the same stock, though to quite an extent they are. The “Texicans” look hopeful, as if they expected to be successful in life. The Mexican Indians and peons, in contrast, have either a hopeless expression or one as stolid and indifferent as that of the pack-animals they drive. Most of the male population of the smaller towns sit upon the station platform, “wrapped in blankets and meditation, waiting only for another day to pass,” as one traveler has said. Of course we have stolid, blanket-wrapped Indians in our Southwest, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. The women at the Mexican stations seem to be somewhat more energetic than the men. They stroll past the train windows offering food and other things for sale. But even they are easily discouraged.

Although they do seem so sad and hopeless, most Mexican Indians and part-Indians are, in a way, good natured. In all my wandering in Mexico I hardly ever had an unkind word from them, in spite of the fact that many of them do not like foreigners, especially “gringoes” or _yanquis_. There are beggars in Mexico, but the poor people do not thrust forward their miseries and misfortunes as much as is done in some other countries.

Rochester Photo, Mexico City

The humble donkey is the best friend of the Mexican peon.
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Differing Characteristics

The Mexican masses differ in many ways among themselves. We must remember that the people, except the small percentage who are entirely white, are a mixture of Indian with Spanish blood. The great majority, therefore, have much the same characteristics as the pure Indians. But we notice that while the plateau inhabitants are timid and morose, those of Tehuantepec and the tropical coast lands are gay and almost carefree in their manner. A bare landscape always seems to have a depressing effect on people, while a region that is full of trees and plants cheers them.

Mexicans, even of the poorest class, are musical, and are as fond of flowers as the Japanese. Along almost any miserable trail that I traveled I found morning glories, geraniums, patches of dark purple blossoms, huge masses of bougainvillea. There are Mexican bands in small as well as in large towns, belonging usually to the police or the fire department. They all play quite well, though they may know few pieces and actually be unable to read music! They are naturally rhythmical. In prisons there are bands made up of the convicts.

Many Indians and peons of the plateau take only one real bath a year. Yet I cannot blame them much. Down in tropical Mexico there is plenty of bathing; but up on the plateau where there is no natural heat, and very little artificial heat, the water is generally cold. On St. John the Baptist’s Day, however, all Mexicans bathe. On that day (June 24th) the rivers and the public bathhouses are crowded from daylight until long after dark. There are almost no bathtubs in Mexico except in the hotels of the capital. Shower baths are more common, and in the warmer regions the nearest river does very well. But only a brave man would bathe in the rivers of the high table-land.

Underwood & Underwood

At Aguascalientes the women and girls bathe and do their washing in
the stream fed by hot springs.
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Speaking of baths, there is a Mexican state named Aguascalientes, which means Hot Springs. Its capital, bearing the same name, is honeycombed with tunnels of unknown origin and purpose. In this city, famous for its hot sulphur baths, it is said that the Aztecs many centuries ago had elaborate baths for their emperors and nobles.

Sometimes the Mexican Indians seem to us quite stupid. I have seen one of them carry a long beam across his shoulders, and be unable to get through a gate with it because he did not know enough to turn sidewise. These people seem to have almost no imagination or initiative, but must copy from others or be told by them what to do. However, they are not physically weak. I have mentioned already that when Cortés came to Mexico he found Indian runners carrying fish from the coast to the capital daily. They ran in relays, but even so, great strength and endurance were required. The distance of two hundred miles, including mountain ranges 7,500 feet high, was covered between afternoon and Montezuma’s dinnertime next day. Recently two Mexican Indians ran a hundred kilometers (about sixty-three miles) in nine hours and thirty-seven minutes. Their course from Panchuca to Mexico City was from a mile and a half to two miles above sea level, at an altitude where many people find it hard to breathe even when walking. Yet these two men of the Tarahumare tribe (a name that means “foot racing”) were so fresh at the end of the run that they looked as if they could turn around and start back again.

The Aztecs had no horses or oxen, or any other four-footed beasts of burden, not even the llamas found in Peru. That was such a handicap to trade that we wonder the Aztec civilization rose as high as it did. Mexican Indians of to-day are all used to carrying loads on their backs, in baskets with a strap across the forehead. Indeed, American engineers building the first railroad in Mexico had to prevent the Indians from taking the wheels off the wheelbarrows and carrying the loaded barrows on their backs.

Photo from Janet M. Cummings

A Mexican girl spinning wool. After being carded, so that the fibres
will lie in the same general direction, the wool is worked into
pieces of uniform thickness, forming strips about four inches wide
and seven inches long. These strips are lengthened and twisted
together as they are wound upon a distaff. After many unwindings and
rewindings, a fluffy piece of cord is produced. In the picture you
see fluffy strips of wool extending from the basket to the girl’s
hand. The wool is spun later into a finer thread.
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