parts of the country at work in the
fields for the Coras, who paid them the customary Mexican wages of
twenty-five centavos a day. The real owners of the land for once
maintained their proper position.

I saw hikuli cultivated near some of the houses in San Francisco. They
were in blossom, producing beautiful large, white flowers. The plant
is used at the mitotes, but not generally.

On both sides of the steep arroyo near San Francisco were a great
number of ancient walls of loose stones, one above the other, a kind
of fortification. In other localities, sometimes in places where one
would least expect them, I found a number of circular figures formed
by upright stones firmly embedded in the ground, in the same way as
those described earlier in this narrative.

The pueblo, _mirabile dictu_, had a Huichol teacher, whom the
authorities considered, and justly so, to be better than the ordinary
Mexican teacher. He was one of nine boys whom the Bishop of Zacatecas,
in 1879, while on a missionary tour in the Huichol country, had picked
out to educate for the priesthood. After an adventurous career, which
drove him out of his own country, he managed now to maintain himself
here. Although his word could not be implicitly trusted, he helped
me to get on with the Coras, and I am under some obligation to him.

A prominent feature in the elaborate ceremonies of the tribe, connected
with the coming of age of boys and girls, is the drinking of home-made
mescal. The lifting of the cochiste, as described among the Aztecs,
is also practised, at least among the Coras of the sierra, and is
always performed at full moon.

The people begin to marry when they are fifteen years old, and
they may live to be a hundred. The arrangement of marriages by the
parents of the boy without consulting him is a custom still largely
followed. On five occasions, every eighth day, they go to ask for
the bride they have selected. If she consents to marry the man, then
all is right. One man of my acquaintance did not know his "affinity"
when his parents informed him that they had a bride for him. Three
weeks later they were married, and, as in the fairy-tale, lived
happily ever afterward. His parents and grandparents fasted before
the wedding. In San Francisco I saw men and women who were married,
or engaged to be married, bathing together in the river.

Fasting is also a notable feature in the religion of the Coras, and is
considered essential for prod