earsal
in the noble art of packing mules. The result was that I had to take
a hand myself in putting the aparejos on the animals, shoeing them
and curing the sore backs, which, as a matter of course, developed
from the inexperience of some of the men.

On the second day, by a stupendous effort, we started, but could go
only eight miles to a beautiful llano surrounded by oaks and pines. A
few ranches are all that remains of the village that once existed
here. On one of them lived a rich Cora who had married a Tepehuane
woman. All Coras get rich, the Indians here assert, because they know
better how to appease the gods. They submit to fasting and restrictions
for a month, or even a year, and then go "to the richest mountain the
ancient people knew." The master of the mountain comes out and the
two make a bargain, the Cora agreeing to pay for the cattle, deer,
corn, and other possessions, with men that he kills. The belief that
the mountains are the masters of all riches--of money, cattle, mules,
sheep, and shepherds--is common among the tribes of the Sierra Madre.

When it devolves upon a Cora to make good his agreement and kill a man,
he makes from burnt clay, strips of cloth, etc., a small figure of
the victim and then with incantations puts thorns through the head
or stomach, to make the original suffer. He may even represent the
victim on horseback, and place the figure upside down to give him
pain. Sometimes a Cora makes a figure of the animal he wants, forming
it of wax or burned clay, or carving it from tuff, and deposits it
in a cave in the mountain. For every cow, deer, dog, or hen wanted,
he has to sacrifice a corresponding figure.

The next day we followed for some time the camino real, which leads
from Acaponeta to the towns of Mezquital and Durango. We then descended
without difficulty some 3,000 feet into the canon of Civacora, through
which flows a river of the same name, said to originate in the State
of Zacatecas. It passes near the cities of Durango and Sombrerete,
this side of Cerro Gordo. In this valley, which runs in a northerly
and southerly direction, we found some Tepehuanes from the pueblo of
San Francisco.

The Indians here were defiant and disagreeable, and would not even
give us any information about the track we were to follow. They had the
reputation of stealing mules and killing travellers for the sake of the
corn the latter are likely to carry. I therefore put two men on guard
and allo