The Indians, being honourable in their dealings, do not at first contact with the whites suspect rascality, and many stories are told illustrating the ease with which they have been cheated.

Once a Mexican bought a sheep from a native on credit, and, after killing it, paid for it with the head, the skin, and the entrails.  Another man did still better.  He paid for his sheep with the same valuables, and “spoke so well” that the Indian was content to remain in his debt as the final result of the transaction.  On another occasion a native was induced to sell eleven oxen, almost his entire stock, to a Mexican.  It was agreed that the latter should pay two cows for each ox, but not having any cows with him he left his horse and saddle as security.  The Indian is still waiting for the cows.  When I expressed my surprise at the ease with which he allowed himself to be swindled, he replied that the Mexican “spoke so well.”  They are so delighted at hearing their language spoken by a white man, that they lose all precaution and are completely at the mercy of the wily whites, who profit by their weakness.

Some tough lenguaraz is not ashamed to cheat at games until the Indian has lost everything he has.  One poor wretch lost several oxen in one game of quinze.  Other sharpers borrow money from the natives and never pay back the loan, or else impose fines on the Indians under the pretext of being authorities.  Some foist themselves upon the Tarahumares at their feasts, which they disturb by getting drunk and violating women.  Where the Indians are still masters of the situation they catch such an offender and take him before the Mexican authorities, insisting upon his paying for all the requirements for another feast, as he has spoiled the value of the one on which he intruded.  In the central part of the country, near Norogachic, they may even kill such a transgressor.

It is generally through mescal that the Indians become peons.  When the Indian has once developed a taste for mescal, he will pay anything to get it, first his animals, then his land.  When he has nothing more to sell, the whites still give him this brandy and make him work.  And there he is.  To work himself free is next to impossible, because his wages are not paid in money, but in provisions, which barely suffice to keep him and his family alive.  Indians are sometimes locked up over night to force them to work.

The children of such parents grow up as peons of the Mexicans, who deal out miserable wages to the descendants of the owners of the land on which the usurpers grow rich.  Before the occupancy of the country by the new masters, the Tarahumares never knew what poverty was.  No wonder that the Christian Tarahumares believe that hell is peopled so thickly with Mexicans that there is not room for all.  Some have been crowded out, and have come to the Tarahumares to trouble them.  The Indians in some districts have been cheated so much that they no longer believe anything the white men tell them, and they do not offer food any more to a white stranger if he is what they call “deaf,” in other words, unable to speak and understand their language and explain what he is about.