At evening, after a fair day's work, we made our way on foot across the valley and up the long slope to the summit of the ridge on which lay Huixquilucan, the official centre of a municipality of 11,000 persons. Of these, 3,000 live in the village, while the remainder are clustered together in hamlets like San Bartolito, San Francisco, Agua Bendita, or are scattered in single-house settlements over the mountains. Of the 11,000 persons, more than three-fourths claim to be full Otomis. There are no truly poor in the whole town. Every family has its field, its house, its bit of woodland. All the people still speak the native tongue, and many speak no other. The town is picturesquely situated upon the crest and flank of a long, narrow ridge, which is enclosed by a grand sweeping curve of lofty mountains. The flanks of the enclosed ridge and the whole slope of the surrounding mountains are occupied by the little fields of the indians, long narrow patches separated by lines of maguéy or century-plants. The houses are built of adobe bricks with thick and solid walls, which are usually plastered on the outside and tinted white or pink. The roofs are pitched, but with a gentle slope. They consist of frameworks of poles upon which long narrow shingles are laid, and pegged in place with wooden pegs which project both above and below for several inches in a formidable, bristling way. Sometimes the shingles, instead of being pegged in place, are held by stones, which in some cases weigh several pounds, and are laid in regular horizontal lines.
When we were there, great stacks of corn-husks were to be seen in almost every yard; these were placed on floorings, raised by posts some distance above the ground to keep them from animals. A long ladder usually leaned against one side of the stack and a light cross of sticks stuck into the top of the stack kept off evil influences. Sometimes this cross was cut in relief on the smooth, carefully trimmed end of the stack itself. More striking than these stacks, and quite characteristic of the Otomi country, were the queer corn-bins or granaries called by the Aztec name cincalote. They rose in all directions like great square columns. The floor of boards was slightly raised from the ground by stones, and measured some 4 or 5 feet on a side; from its corners rose 4 poles, sometimes to the height of 20 feet; these were connected at the top and held firm by ropes. The sides of the bin were built up of a cobwork of slender staves laid horizontally. The vertical bin thus formed was filled with ears of corn roofed about with a light thatch or shingled roof. Later in the season, as the corn was taken from these bins, the sides would have been removed piecemeal to keep progress with the diminishing hoard. When the time of planting should be near, the whole structure but the floor and upright poles would have disappeared.
Next to maize the chief culture among the Otomis is maguéy. This forms division lines between the corn-fields and the village yards, and is sometimes, though not commonly here, planted in fields. The maguéy is an agave very close to the century-plant. Manifold are its uses, but to the Otomi its value is chiefly in two directions. It furnishes ixtli fibre for ayates, and it yields pulque. For a dozen years the maguéy plant stores away starchy food in its long, thick, sharp-pointed leaves. It is the intended nourishment for a great shaft of flowers. Finally, the flower-bud forms amid the cluster of leaves. Left to itself the plant now sends all its reserve of food into this bud, and the great flower-stalk shoots upward at the rate of several inches daily; then the great pyramid of flowers develops. But man interferes. The flower-bud is cut out, and a neat, deep cup is fashioned amid the bases of the cluster of leaves. The sap which should produce that wonderful growth is poured into this cup. The pulque gatherer, with his long gourd collecting-tube, and skin carrying-bottle, goes from plant to plant and gathers the agua miel—honey-water. Fermented, it becomes the whitish, dirty, ropy, sour-tasting, bad-smelling stuff so dear to the indians. And the Otomi are fond of pulque. We were compelled to do our work in the mornings; in the afternoons everyone was drunk and limp and useless in the operator's hands.
We slept and ate at the house of the presidente, an old mestizo of rather forbidding manners but kindly spirit. Our cases came rather slowly and a deal of coaxing, argument, and bribes were necessary to secure them. Here we gave a trifle, a few centavos, to each subject. The policy was bad, and we abandoned it with reference to all subsequent populations. Naturally the natives were hostile to our work. They thought that we were measuring them for their coffins; that they would be forced into the army; that disease would result; that an uncanny influence was laid upon them; that witchcraft might be worked against them. After having had a lot of trouble with many of our subjects, we were surprised one day to have the oldest man of the village, Antonio Calistro, born in 1813, still so hale and hearty that he works his own fields, come in for measurement and photographing. He still wears the old style of dress: a loose jacket with wide sleeves made of dark blue woolen cloth, gathered around the waist by a closely-woven cotton belt; short, wide-legged trousers of buckskin. He is the only man left in the village who wears his hair after the old fashion; that on top of his head in front was combed together and braided into a little tail, while that on the sides and back of the head was made into a longer braid. When we asked him how it was that he was not afraid to undergo our measurement and photographing, we learned that someone had told him that the purport of the work was to send information to the Pope in Rome as to how his Otomi children looked, and from respect for the Holy Father the old man of eighty years had walked in from his distant farm to be measured and photographed.
A curious fact in respect to the Otomis resulted from our study. The men, apparently of pure blood, presented two quite different types. There are many who are as little as the women; these present almost the type already given as that of the women, but are a little lighter in color. The second type is tall, sometimes over 1,700 millimeters. It is lighter in color, presenting at times a light brownish-yellow shade. Some indians of this large type have white skins, blotched with disagreeable red or purple. The eyes of these large men are usually widely-spaced, and the face appears rounder than in their smaller brethren. All the Otomis of both types, men and women, have astonishingly big heads, and many dwarfish individuals would require a 7–¼ hat.
One night during our stay we had a grand illumination. It was St. Martin's Eve. During the afternoon the men and boys planted dead trees in the plaza and streets, and filled the branches with bunches of dry brush. At dusk we walked up to the crest before the church. All through the valley the men and boys had been busy, and as darkness settled down, blaze after blaze sprung forth until every hillside was dotted with flaming heaps. On every church and farm-house of large size, straight lines of little bonfires were built along the edges of the roof. There must have been many hundreds of fires in sight at once. Meanwhile, all the churches of the little hamlets around clanged their bells discordantly. Then the church close by us burst into illumination, and its bells joined in the clangor as we started down the hill. The villagers were putting torches to the piles,