The unwillingness of desirable men to leave their homes makes a frequent change very embarrassing.  My next destination from Pueblo Viejo was Santa Teresa, the most northern of the Cora pueblos, and everybody thought it was too far away.  I had finally to take whatever I could get in the way of carriers.  For instance, I had only one man on whom I could depend, a civilised Tepehuane, who was bright and knew his business well, but he was hampered by an injured arm.  Then I obtained another man, somewhat elderly.  He, too, became suddenly aware that his right arm was crooked and not strong enough to lift heavy burdens, while the two remaining carriers had never loaded a mule in their lives.  The first two directed the other pair how to proceed, and thus I was treated to the ludicrous spectacle of four men engaged in packing one mule.  Naturally it took all day to load my ten animals, and when this was accomplished, it was too late to start, so that the day’s work turned out to be nothing but a dress-rehearsal in the noble art of packing mules.  The result was that I had to take a hand myself in putting the aparejos on the animals, shoeing them and curing the sore backs, which, as a matter of course, developed from the inexperience of some of the men.

On the second day, by a stupendous effort, we started, but could go only eight miles to a beautiful llano surrounded by oaks and pines.  A few ranches are all that remains of the village that once existed here.  On one of them lived a rich Cora who had married a Tepehuane woman.  All Coras get rich, the Indians here assert, because they know better how to appease the gods.  They submit to fasting and restrictions for a month, or even a year, and then go “to the richest mountain the ancient people knew.”  The master of the mountain comes out and the two make a bargain, the Cora agreeing to pay for the cattle, deer, corn, and other possessions, with men that he kills.  The belief that the mountains are the masters of all riches—­of money, cattle, mules, sheep, and shepherds—­is common among the tribes of the Sierra Madre.

When it devolves upon a Cora to make good his agreement and kill a man, he makes from burnt clay, strips of cloth, etc., a small figure of the victim and then with incantations puts thorns through the head or stomach, to make the original suffer.  He may even represent the victim on horseback, and place the figure upside down to give him pain.  Sometimes a Cora makes a figure of the animal he wants, forming it of wax or burned clay, or carving it from tuff, and deposits it in a cave in the mountain.  For every cow, deer, dog, or hen wanted, he has to sacrifice a corresponding figure.

The next day we followed for some time the camino real, which leads from Acaponeta to the towns of Mezquital and Durango.  We then descended without difficulty some 3,000 feet into the canon of Civacora, through which flows a river of the same name, said to originate in the State of Zacatecas.  It passes near the cities of Durango and Sombrerete, this side of Cerro Gordo.  In this valley, which runs in a northerly and southerly direction, we found some Tepehuanes from the pueblo of San Francisco.