hunt squirrels, and accordingly takes his bow and arrows or his axe
with him. In spring-time he may go to the field. The wife also tells
of her plans for the day. The work that engages most of the time of
the housewives in Mexico is the grinding of the corn, on the metate,
for corn-cakes; and if she has any time to spare she boils beans,
looks for herbs, or works on her weaving-frame; but she never sits
about idle. She looks as conscientiously after her duties as any white
woman; she has always something to do, and many things to take care
of in her small way.

About sunset the husband returns, bringing a squirrel or rabbit,
which he carries concealed in his blanket, that no neighbour may
see it and expect an invitation to help to eat it. As he goes and
comes he never salutes his wife or children. He enters in silence
and takes his seat near the fire. The animal he caught he throws
toward her where she is kneeling before the metate, so that it
falls on her skirt. She ejaculates "Sssssssssss!" in approval and
admiration, and, picking it up, praises its good points extravagantly:
"What a big mouth! What large claws!" etc. He tells her how hard he
worked to get that squirrel, how it had run up the tree, and he had
to cut down that tree, till finally the dog caught it. "The dog is
beginning to be very good at hunting," he says. "And now I am very
tired." She spreads before him a generous supper of beans, herbs,
and maize porridge, which she has ready for him. And while he eats
she goes industriously to work removing the fur from the game, but
leaving on the skin, not only because it keeps the meat together
while it is boiling, but mainly because she thinks there is a good
deal of nourishment in it, which it would be a shame to waste.

When the man is at home, and neither sleeping nor eating, he may sit
down and make a bow or some arrows; or, stretched out on his back,
he may resort to his favourite amusement, playing his home-made
violin. Like all Indians of Mexico, the Tarahumares are fond of
music and have a good ear for it. When the Spaniards first came,
they found no musical instruments among the Tarahumares except the
short reed flute, so common to many Mexican tribes, the shaman's
rattle, and the rasping stick. But they soon introduced the violin
and even the guitar, and throughout Mexico the Indians now make these
instruments themselves, using pine wood and other indigenous material
in their construction, sometime