The Tepehuanes make pulque, but not tesvino, and cotton is cultivated on a very small scale.  They gather the fibre of the maguey and other plants, and make sacks and ropes of excellent quality, for their own use as well as for sale in Durango, to which market they also take any fruit not required for home consumption.

Their only amusement is to drink mescal and pulque.  No games are in use, and to stake money or valuables in any of the “neighbours’” games is forbidden.

The commonest disease here, strange to say, is malaria, which sometimes proves fatal.  The first thing a Tepehuane does in the morning is to wash his head, face, and hands with cold water, letting it dry without wiping it off.  He starts to do his work with the water dripping from him.

The Southern Tepehuanes perform a religious dance called by the Mexicans mitote; it is also found among the Aztecs, the Coras, and the Huichols.  In the vicinity of Lajas is a circular plain set pleasantly among the oak-trees.  This is the dancing-place.  At its eastern side is a jacal, a gable-shaped straw-roof resting on four poles, the narrow sides standing east and west.  Inside of it is found an altar, consisting simply of a matting of large, split bamboo sticks (tapexte) resting on a framework of four horizontal poles, which in turn are supported by two pairs of upright forked sticks.  On this altar the people put the food used at the dances, and many ceremonial objects are placed here or hung under the roof of the jacal.

In regard to their native religion, they are as reticent as their northern brethren, if not more so.  “I would rather be hanged than tell anything,” said one shaman to me.  Still, all things come to him who waits.  This very man, who was so tragic, became my friend, and when we parted he asked me to write my name on a piece of paper, that he might salute me every morning.  A name is a sacred thing, and they never tell their real native names.

Nowhere else in Mexico have the institutions founded by the missionaries of early times remained intact as in Lajas.  Not only so, but the regulations are carried even further than was originally intended, and this in spite of the fact that the Indians have not given up their own ancient religion.  No priest is now living among them; and only at rare intervals does the Cura come from Pueblo Nuevo to baptise and malry.

The native chosen civil authorities are composed of fourteen, the ecclesiastical of seven members.  The gobernador has supreme authority with both bodies, and when important matters are at issue the people are brought together and consulted.  The decisions or orders are given to the so-called captain, who sees that they are carried into effect.  The officers are elected every year, and meet in sessions almost every day, to settle the affairs of the people, and to inflict punishment even on the shamans when necessary.  They have recently renovated the prison, and put in a new set of stocks; and the whipping-post is still in constant use, to supplement the laws of the Mexican Government, which are considered altogether too mild.