A shaman who agreed to sell me some hikuli took me with him to his house.  Then he walked over to a store-house of pine boards, and with a long stick undid the lock from within, taking off a few boards from the roof to get at it.  After some searching, he produced a small closed basket.  Holding this in his hand, he rapidly ran around me in one ceremonious circuit, and said in a scarcely audible voice:  “Thank you for the time you have been with me; now go with him; I will give you food before you go.”  The smoke of copal was blown over the plants in the basket, that they might eat; and I had to smell of the incense, so that hikuli might find pleasure in being with me.  The shaman then opened the basket and asked me to select what I wanted.  I picked out twelve plants, but, as he asked $10 for them, I contented myself with three.

On my way back to civilisation, I spent some time at Guajochic, near which place the great hikuli expert, Shaman Rubio, lives.  He is a truly pious man, well-meaning and kind-hearted, living up to his principles, in which Christianity and Paganism are harmoniously blended.  He is highly esteemed by all his countrymen, who consider him the greatest hikuli shaman in that part of the Tarahumare country.  His profession brings him a very comfortable living, as his services are constantly in demand, and are paid for by fine pieces of the animals sacrificed.  For curing the people he even gets money; and what with praying and singing, drinking tesvino and hikuli, fasting and curing the sick, he passes his days in the happy conviction that he keeps the world going.  From him I obtained specimens of the various kinds of cacti which the Tarahumares worship,—­a betrayal of the secrets of the tribe, for which the other shamans punished him by forbidding him ever to go again on a hikuli journey.  Though in the first year he obeyed the sentence, he did not take it much to heart, feeling himself far superior to his judges, who, he knew, could not get along without him, and in the end would have to come to him; for he is the most virtuous of them all, and therefore knows the commands of Tata Dios better than anyone else.

It is to him that I owe a good deal of what I know about this plant-worship, as well as several songs used in the cult.  He came often to see me, and one day told me in confidence that the hikuli in my possession would have to be fed before they started on their long journey to the United States; for it was a long time since they had had food, and they were getting angry.  The next time he came he brought some copal tied up in a cotton cloth, and after heating the incense on a piece of crockery he waved the smoke over the plants, which he had placed in front of him.  This, he said, would satisfy them; they would now go content with me, and no harm would come to me from sorcerers, robbers, or Apaches.  This was a comfort, for to reach Chihuahua I had to pass through some disturbed country, and there were rumours of a revolution.