of blindness by the gall of a fish.

Most surprising of all is the fact that this tribe, which to-day
shows but very slight knowledge of surgery, should in former times
have practised trepanning. That the Tarahumares understood this art is
evident from two skulls which I brought back from their country. The
skulls were found under the following circumstances:

In 1894 I stayed for a fortnight in a remote part of the Sierra Madre,
called Pino Gordo on account of its magnificent pine-trees. The
district is separated on the north from the central part of the
Tarahumare country by the deep Barranca de San Carlos, and there are
no Mexicans living within its confines. The place in which I found one
of the skulls is twenty miles north of the mining town of Guadalupe
y Calvo. A lonely trail leads through it on which, only occasionally,
perhaps once in the course of a month, a Mexican from the ranches at
Guachochic may journey to Guadalupe y Calvo.

One day the principal man of the locality, who had been very friendly
to me, showed me a burial-cave. I had persuaded him that it was
better for me to take away the bones contained in it, in order to
keep them in a good house, than to let them remain where they were,
"killing sheep and making people sick." "But why do you want them?" he
asked. Having been satisfied on this point, he one day led the way to
a wild, steep arroyo, pointed at its head, and having thus indicated
where the cave was, at once left me. I made my way as best I could
up the steep little gorge, accompanied by one of my men. On arriving
at the top I found the entrance to the cave completely covered with
stones plastered together with mud. A heap of stones was also piled
outside against the wall.

The cave I found very small, and, contrary to the exaggerated reports
of the Indians, it contained only three skeletons. According to the
custom prevailing throughout part of the country of the Tarahumares,
these remains had not been buried. The skeletons were simply lying
on their backs, from east to west, as if looking toward the setting
sun. A few crudely made clay vessels of the ordinary Tarahumare type
were found alongside of them. On gathering the three skulls I was at
once struck by a circular hole in the right parietal bone of one of
them. As they undoubtedly belonged to the Tarahumares, the question
at once occurred to me: Can it be possible that this barbaric tribe,
not particularly advanced in the arts, wa