Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) eBook

Carl Sofus Lumholtz
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 450 pages of information about Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2).

Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) eBook

Carl Sofus Lumholtz
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 450 pages of information about Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2).

There was an Indian here, Canuto, who could read and write, and, as he took a great interest in church affairs, he acted as a kind of padre.  I was told that he ascended the pulpit and delivered sermons in Cora, and that he aspired even to bless water, but this the padre had forbidden him.  He was very suspicious and intolerant and quite an ardent Catholic, the first Indian I had met who had entirely relinquished his native belief.  He actually did not like mitote dancing, and the other Indians did not take kindly to him.  All the time I was here he worked against me, because the priest of San Juan Peyotan, as I learned, had denounced me before the people.

Two traders from that town, who had been visiting Santa Teresa while I was there, had reported to the padre the presence of a mysterious gringo (American), who had a fine outfit of boxes and pack-mules, and who gave the Coras “precious jewellery” to buy their souls, and visited their dances.  The padre, without having ever seen me, concluded that I was a travelling Protestant missionary, and one day after mass he warned the people against the bad Protestant who was on his way to corrupt their hearts and to disturb this valley in which there had always been peace.  “Do not accept anything from him, not even his money; do not allow him to enter the church, and do not give him anything, not even a glass of water,” he said.  This padre, so I was told by reliable authority, made the judges at San Juan and at San Lucas punish men and women for offences that did not come under their jurisdiction.  The men were put into prison, while the women had fastened to their ankles a heavy round board, which they had to drag wherever they went for a week or two.  It caused them great difficulty in walking, and they could not kneel down at the metate with it.

His speeches about me made a deep impression upon the illiterate Mexicans in that remote part of the world, who in consequence of it looked upon me with suspicion and shunned me.  Not knowing anything better, they invented all kinds of wild charges against me:  I was surveying the lands for Porfirio Diaz, who wanted to sell the Cora country to the Americans; I appealed only to the Indians because they were more confiding and could be more easily led astray, my alleged aim being to make Freemasons out of them.  A Freemason is the one thing of which these people have a superstitious dread and horror.  Even my letters of recommendation were doubted and considered spurious.  However, one old man, whose wife I had cured, told me that Protestants are also Christians, and in his opinion I was even better than a Protestant.  Fortunately, the Indians were less impressionable, and as their brethren in the sierra had not reported to them anything bad about me, they could see no harm in a man who did not cheat anyone and took an interest in their ancient customs and beliefs, while the padres had always made short work of their sacred ceremonial things, breaking and burning them.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.