on the plain we could
distinctly hear the beating of the tawitol, the musical instrument
of the Tepehuanes. At this distance it sounded like a big drum.

We passed the ranch which was giving the mitote, and a hundred yards
farther on we came upon a picturesque scene. Here on a meadow the
Indians were grouped around the many fires whose lights flickered
among the trees. There was just a pause in the dancing, which had
begun soon after sunset. I could at once discern a little plain set
apart for the dancing. On its eastern side was an altar of the usual
description, fenced on two sides with felled trees, on which were hung
the paraphernalia of the dancers, their bows, quivers, etc. In the
centre of the dancing-place was a large fire, and to the west of it
the shaman was seated on a stool. Behind him, similar though smaller
stools were set for the owner of the ranch and the principal men.

Strange to say, the shaman was a Tepehuane. I learned later that the
Aztecs consider the shamans of that tribe better than their own. In
front of the shaman was the musical instrument on which he had been
playing. This was a large, round gourd, on top of which a bow of
unusual size was placed with its back down. The shaman's right foot
rested on a board which holds the bow in place on the gourd. The
bow being made taut, the shaman beats the string with two sticks,
in a short, rhythmical measure of one long and two short beats. When
heard near by, the sonorousness of the sound reminds one of the cello.

This is the musical bow of America, which is here met with for the
first time. It is intimately connected with the religious rites of
this tribe, as well as with those of the Coras and the Huichols,
the latter playing it with two arrows. The assertion has been made
that the musical bow is not indigenous to the Western Hemisphere,
but was introduced by African slaves. Without placing undue
importance on the fact that negroes are very rarely, if at all,
found in the north-western part of Mexico, it seems entirely beyond
the range of possibility that a foreign implement could have become
of such paramount importance in the religious system of several
tribes. Moreover, this opinion is confirmed by Mr. R. B. Dixon's
discovery, in 1900, of a musical bow among the Maidu Indians on the
western slope of the Sierra Nevada, northeast of San Francisco,
California. In the religion of that tribe also this bow plays an
important part, and much secrec