Vagabond life in Mexico/An Indian Village
CHAPTER III.
An Indian Village.
We had now been for some time on the road, and the night was getting darker and darker. The moon, which up to this time had lighted our way, was now becoming gradually encircled with a halo a bad omen. At last it finally disappeared in a dense bank of clouds on the verge of the horizon. From time to time a yellowish sheet of lightning shot through the dark mass, and brought out, in strong relief, the dense blackness which enveloped the country around. The instinct of our horses alone kept us right in the thick darkness. The barking of dogs announced our approach to some solitary cabin by the wayside; sometimes we charged unwillingly among a herd of pigs which were lying wallowing in the ruts of the road, and which trotted off grunting in the darkness. In the midst of this savage scene, surrounded with the lurid light produced by the flashes, which were following each other in quick succession, we looked more like some country smugglers out on an expedition than peaceful travelers on an excursion of pleasure.
We had already passed through the village of Tacubaya, and were struggling onward in the mountain road which leads to Toluca. I knew nothing of the road they were leading me. That was of little importance, provided we reached our place of destination before the bursting of the storm, which announced its approach by distant peals of thunder. We soon arrived at a rising ground, round the foot of which ran a pine wood. There a halt was called to breathe our horses. The clouds of dust we had swallowed rendered some refreshment necessary. A skin of Valdepeñas wine, which the officer Don Blas carried at his saddle-bow, was passed round, and served for a moment to quench the burning thirst which had begun to torment us. I profited by this opportunity to renew my inquiries about our place of destination. The theological student undertook to satisfy my curiosity.
"I have been invited," said he, "to spend the Easter holidays at the hacienda of a friend of mine, about a dozen leagues from here; I thought it no bad thing to give my friend the honor of receiving a few more guests, and I am sure you will all be very welcome."
The hidalgo Don Romulo, on his part, was not unwilling to allow, during his absence, the agitation caused by a very violent pamphlet which he had written against the government of the republic to subside, while he was anxious, at the same time, to visit the ruins of a celebrated convent, the Desierto, which was on our way. The officer hoped to escape in the Desierto and the hacienda the importunities of his numerous creditors, and was disposed to make himself happy in every place but where they were. As for Fray Serapio, he confessed that, having been forced, as he might call it, to purchase a habit ill suited to a monk, he had embraced with delight the invitation of his friend, Don Diego Mercado.
"And yet I got a hundred piastres for my old habit," added the Franciscan, gloomily, taking another pull at the skin of Valdepeñas."That's where your soft-heartedness leads you," said I. "You have doubtless flung it away in charity."
"Mon cher (these were the only French words that Fray Serapio knew, and he made use of them on all occasions), know then, once for all, that I don't deserve your praises. Nature cut me out for a soldier, but conventionality made me a monk."
The Franciscan confessed, readily enough, that when he was on the point of buying a new frock, an inconceivable distraction made him spend the money on other things quite useless for a man, and, above all, for a monk; things which—(Fray Serapio whispered the remainder in my ear). The skin of Valdepeñas being now half empty, we resumed our journey. Large drops of rain began to fall; the storm was going to burst over us in all its fury. To push on was our only resource. Stimulated by a secret instinct, our horses increased their pace. Sometimes they shyed or stopped suddenly, terrified at the fantastic forms of some projecting root, or the sudden growl of the thunder; but these annoyances were only temporary, and we flew over the ground with inconceivable swiftness. We descried at last, in a plain, a little Indian village, still more than a league in advance. We covered this league in a few minutes, and entered the village, saluted by a legion of hungry dogs, who snarled and bit at our horses' heels. Our arrival set every one in motion. Copper-colored faces appeared and disappeared at the doors of the huts. We were asking ourselves, in no small consternation, if we must give up all hopes of finding a shelter in a place where every door seemed to be shut against us, when Fray Serapio, catching an Indian by his long hair, forced him to lead us to a house that did duty for an inn.Scarcely had we stopped before the door of the pretended hostelry than a great hulking fellow, one of the half-breeds so numerous in Mexico, very easily known by his complexion, opened one of the leaves of the door, which was secured by the invariable iron chain. This was the master of the inn, who had come to parley with us.
"I have neither stables, nor maize, nor straw to offer your lordships," said the half-breed, in a gruff tone; "be so good, then, as to continue your journey."
"Go to the devil," said the officer, "with your straw, your maize, and your stables; all we want is a room fit for Christians and officers. Open, or I will smash the door to pieces."
To give full force to his threat, Captain Don Blas struck the door such a furious blow with his sabre, that the huesped, in a fright, dropped the chain, and, excusing himself for his obstinacy by the plea that there were a great number of suspicious characters abroad, ushered us into an apartment little better than a stable.
"I hope," cried Don Romulo, putting his pocket handkerchief to his nose, "that we sha'n't be obliged to pass the night in this cursed hole!"
"You are very squeamish, mon cher" said Fray Serapio; "the room seems tolerable enough."
In spite of this assertion, we determined to push on after the storm had passed. We remained, then, standing till we could take the road again, as we wished to reach the hacienda as quickly as possible, where a hospitable reception had been promised us. I thought this halt presented a favorable opportunity for making some inquiries about the mysterious monk I had met in the garden of San Francisco. To my first question: "I can guess whom you are inquiring about," said Fray Serapio, shaking his head; "it is Fray Epigmenio whom you saw in the arbor in the garden of the convent, of which you and he are the only visitants. A trial, to which he was subjected by the Inquisition, turned the head of the poor soul, and for fifty years his life has been only one long penance."
"Well, I'll tell you frankly," I rejoined, "I had a suspicion that some painful mystery was wrapped up in the life of this man. I counted upon you for its solution, and it was you I was in search of when chance brought us together on the Viga."
The monk was about to reply, when an extraordinary noise arose in the court-yard of the posada, which was suddenly lit up by the red glow of torches. Al most at the same moment a man, whom from his copper-colored visage and strange costume we easily knew to be an Indian, entered, followed by several inhabitants of the village, some carrying torches, others brandishing knotty clubs, some even with bows, and arrows in reed quivers. The Indian who seemed to be the chief of the party advanced, and told us that, as our noisy arrival had disturbed the peace of the village, the alcalde wished to see us without delay.
"And what if we don't want to see the alcalde?" said the officer.
"You will then be taken by force," said the Indian, pointing to his armed escort. This gesture was sufficient. It was impossible for us to resist, for the ministers of Indian justice had very prudently seized our horses and arms. We looked at one another in no small dismay. The Indian mansos, who rule their villages according to the laws of the republic, and even choose from their brothers of the same race their municipal magistracy, behave in the most merciless manner to all the Mexicans who may have committed any crimes in the district intrusted to their care. The worst of all cruelties, the cruelty of weakness, is resorted to on such occasions. It was quite useless to struggle against those sturdy rough alguazils with the bare legs and long hair. We went quietly enough to the house of the alcalde.
"Have patience," said Fray Serapio to me, in a low voice, while going along: "instead of the history of Fray Epigmenio, which I will tell you at some other time, you will behold a sight which few foreigners have an opportunity of seeing in Mexico. If I am not mistaken, we have fallen upon this cursed village at the very time when the Indians celebrate, in their way, the fêtes of the Holy Week. The house of the alcalde is one of the ordinary resting-places of their nocturnal processions."
I had often heard of these singular ceremonies, in which the remains of Indian idolatry are mixed up with the rites of Catholicism. Just when I was going to reply to Fray Serapio, some melancholy monotonous sounds met our ears. The plaintive wail of the reed flute, called by the Indians chirimia, was sadly intermingled with the tapping of several drums struck at regular intervals.
"Three hundred years ago," said Don Diego Mercado to me in a whisper, "it was to the sound of these chirimias that the ancestors of these Indians butchered their human victims at the feet of their idols."
Round a lane, which ran at right angles to the road, came the procession whose approach was announced by this funereal music. Engaged during the day in cultivating their grounds, the Indians devote the night to certain religious solemnities. The time thus adds to the lugubrious effect of their ceremonies. At the head of the procession, borne by four men, was an image of Christ, of a hideously gigantic form, bedabbled with blood. At the two arms of the cross hung two Christs of a smaller size; behind came a disorderly throng of Indians from the village and its environs, carrying crosses of all shapes and dimensions. I remarked that the size of several of the crosses was by no means in harmony with the height of the person who carried them; their dimensions were, in fact, only regulated by the higher or lower sum paid by the per son who wished to figure in these processions. The most splendid images were carried in the van by the head men of the village; the poorer inhabitants followed, and nothing could be imagined more grotesque, more sadly ludicrous than this motley crowd of tatter demalions; some, too poor to purchase Christs, were carrying little images of the saints; others, less lucky still, were forced to hoist on long poles, for want of better, faded pieces of colored cloth and tawdry tinsel, while some had even been forced to carry hen-coops. We bent the knee respectfully as this singular procession slowly wended its way through the streets, while the odd collection of hideous and incongruous objects, and the grotesque faces of the men, lighted up by the dim, ruddy glare of the pine torches, and seen through the smoke, struck us as being more like some infernal procession revisiting this earth than a body of Christians engaged in the celebration of a religious festival.
We arrived at the alcalde's house. The sinister appearance of this Indian magistrate did not tend to soothe our apprehensions. Long gray hair, encircling a face deeply furrowed with wrinkles, flowed down behind to the middle of his back; his muscular arms were hardly covered by the sleeves of his sayal (a tunic with short sleeves); his shrunken, sinewy legs were only half covered by his flapping trowsers of calzoneras skin. On his feet were leather sandals. In such a dress this singular personage seated himself, with an air of comic grandeur, under a sort of canopy formed by the branches of xocopan (a kind of sweet-smelling laurel). The red-skin alguazils ranged themselves behind like a group of stage supernumeraries. We were now asked, "Who and what are you?" This question, delivered in bad Spanish, was put to Fray Serapio, whom his long beard, jaunty costume, and free manners had undoubtedly caused the alcalde to regard as the most suspicious of the party. The monk hesitated. The alcalde continued:
"When people come with arms to a village, it is to be presumed they have a right to carry arms. Can you prove your right?"
It was, then, to examine us as to our right of carrying arms that we had been arrested. The alcalde thought he had us in a trap, and would have an opportunity of inflicting upon us, without going beyond the strict letter of the law, some of those petty insults, for which opportunities are eagerly seized on, to satisfy the traditionary hatred of the Indians against the whites. We understood this perfectly, but we could not counterplot him. We were all obliged to make the same reply. We were traveling incognito, and had no right to carry arms. With the exception of the monk, who seemed ill at ease in his disguise, we were eager to tell our names and quality. As it was a point of the very highest importance to let the Indians know the powerful protectors we had in Mexico, the student fancied he was acting prudently when he said that he was the nephew of the most celebrated apothecary in the city. The clerk wrote down the answer, stopping every now and then to break in pieces little branches of xocopan. As for the alcalde, he seemed to triumph at having in his power five of the enemies of his race. When the student avowed his relationship to the Mexican apothecary, the wily Indian did not consider himself foiled. He seemed lost in thought; but suddenly an expression of malignant joy shot across his features as he hastily put this question to Don Diego:
"If you are the nephew of an apothecary, you must know something of botany?"
Don Diego replied in the affirmative, with an air of perfect satisfaction.
"You must, then, be acquainted with the virtues of matlalquahuitl?"
The alcalde had intentionally chosen a strange Mexican plant very little known, with an Indian name of the most uncouth sound. When he saw the blank look that immediately appeared on the countenance of the student, he guessed that his ruse was successful, and he rubbed his hands with an air of satisfaction. You know nothing of botany; you were trying to cheat me; you are not the nephew of an apothecary; you have all a suspicious air about you. I have a right to detain you, and I'll do it, too. Such was the reasoning which we saw written on the face of the alcalde, who looked with a cool air of disdain both on Don Diego Mercado and on us. At this moment the religious fête, in which the alcalde had to play an import ant part, luckily created a diversion in our favor by putting a stop to this examination. A band of Indians hurriedly entered the room. They dragged along, or rather pushed before them, a man crowned with a wreath of rushes, and draped in a tattered red cloak which had very probably been used as a muleta[1] in a bull-fight. His face and body were quite bespattered with mud. I looked at this man with astonishment as a living enigma, when the student, who was better acquainted with the manners of the Indians than with the virtues of the matlalquahuitl, said, in a low tone,
"There is nothing in this but a religious joke. They are going to get up here a dramatic representation of the Passion. We are no longer in an Indian village, but in Jerusalem. This fellow with the bespattered face personates Christ, and the alcalde, confound him! is Pilate."
In fact, we were about to have produced before us all the scenes of a genuine mystery of the Middle Ages. The alcalde, seated under his canopy of laurel, having gravely listened to the calumnious accusations of the Jews, rose and pronounced in the Indian tongue the historical sentence of condemnation. Such a storm of cries and yells greeted the sentence, that the unfortunate lépero (for it was one of that-class, who, for a few reals, was personating Christ) seemed to think that the drama was becoming rather too serious. He cried out in Spanish,
"Caramba! I think it would have been better had I taken the part of the good thief. Señor Alcalde, don't forget to pay me three reals more for personating the Divine Redeemer!"
"You are a fine fellow!" said the alcalde, pushing the lépero back, who, in violation of all historical truth took refuge in the tribunal itself. At the same time, one of the soldiers who surrounded the Christ, more faithful to his part than the bespattered lépero, struck him a smart blow on the cheek. The lépero could contain himself no longer; he rapped out a fearful oath, and struck out right and left at his astonished persecutors. There was a general melée; a fierce struggle arose between the actor, who had completely forgotten the spirit of his part, and the Indians, who attacked him with a vigor worthy of the agents of Herod. The contest was brought to an end by a heroic sacrifice on the part of the alcalde, who, to overcome the obstinacy of the lépero, promised him six reals more than he was originally entitled to. On this condition the fellow agreed to walk to Calvary in the midst of the Indians. They dragged him along to the place of execution, dealing him a more than ordinary allowance of blows. This business finished, the alcalde returned to us. He had pronounced the sentence upon the pretended Christ with an ill-disguised anxiety. When we saw him conversing with the clerk, I looked somewhat dejectedly at the monk. To my amazement, a smile appeared on his lips which set me completely at my ease. The cause of this sudden change in Fray Serapio was soon explained. To avoid the imprisonment which he saw impending over us, he resolved to appeal to the religious feelings of the alcalde and his followers, of which they had just given such striking proofs. Fray Serapio had reasoned justly. Just when the alcalde was rising to pronounce our sentence, the monk gravely approached the tribunal, snatched off the neckerchief which encircled his head, and showed the Indian magistrate his tonsure. This was truly a theatrical stroke. The man who, scarcely a second before, was affecting to look upon us with such stubborn pride, threw himself trembling and confused at the feet of the Franciscan.
"Ah! holy father," cried the Indian, "why did you not discover yourself sooner? Taking every thing into consideration, one can be an honest man without knowing the virtues of matlalquahuitl."
Fray Serapio need not have answered the terrified Indian. He condescended to confess that, under this disguise and with this escort, he was traveling to execute a mission of religious interest; and the alcalde, who crossed himself devoutly at every word of the monk, took good care not to press him with imprudent questions. An instant after, we marched majestically out of the cabin into which our entrance had been so humble and crestfallen. The Indians returned us our arms and horses. They pressed us in vain to return to the hostelry where we had been so scurvily welcomed. We were very ill pleased at the reception they had given us; and, in spite of the thunder, which had again begun to growl, we galloped out of the village without lending an ear to their entreaties.
- ↑ A red cloth shaken before the bull for the purpose of exciting him.