t one time
or another, been afflicted with it; but the victims get quickly over
it without special treatment, sometimes within a year. Children of
syphilitic parents show the symptoms soon after birth. Small-pox, too,
plays havoc among the population. I have seen some people suffering
with cataract in the eyes, and some foot-runners complained that
their sight sometimes became impaired during or after a race. The
Tarahumares have not any cases of tape-worm, although their sheep
have it; probably the large quantities of tesvino drunk during the
winter may have something to do with this.

Medicine takes remarkably strong hold of the Indians. One man suffered
for two weeks from fever and ague, lost his appetite, and seemed
a general wreck; but after a two-grain quinine pill became at once
himself again, and a few days later was able to take a message for
me to a place forty miles off and return the same day.

The natives do not bathe except in the wet season. When they go to
feasts, they wash their hands and faces, and the women comb their
hair. Sometimes they may wash their feet, but more frequently they
clean their heads. In fact, the regular way of taking a bath is to wash
the head. For this purpose they use an agave called soke. Occasionally
they use a white earth from Cusarare, called _javoncillo_; it is very
soft and it is also used as white colour in decorating pottery. When
the men go into deep water to bathe they smear fat all over their
bodies to guard against all kinds of bad animals in the water; women
do not usually take this precaution.

A Tarahumare does not commit homicide unless he is drunk. There are
only isolated exceptions. A _jefe politico_ (prefect) told me that
in forty years he had heard of only two murders. In both of these
cases a drunken husband had killed his wife at a feast, and knew
nothing of the crime after he became sober. I have been told that in
some rare instances a Tarahumare woman will sit on her child right
after its birth to crush it, in order to save herself the trouble
of bringing it up. The Tepehuanes are reputed to do the same thing,
and for the same purpose. Still with both tribes crimes of this kind
are exceedingly rare.

Suicide is never committed unless a person is drunk and angered by some
slight or by jealousy. At one time there was a veritable epidemic of
suicides among the Indians near Guachochic, the men hanging themselves
with their girdles; one of them even suspen