664 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



a kind of beer, which is still used among the Indians of the sierra of 

 Tepic, and other fermented drinks made of maize, figs of Barbary 

 (tuna), or flowers of the elder tree; drunkenness was prosecuted and 

 punished among them in a very severe manner, except in exceptional 

 cases, as evidently that of a victory won over their enemies. But still 

 it must not be thought that drunkenness was general and exposed 

 the conquerors to the danger of being the victims of a successful 

 return of the conquered. That is, all the men did not indulge in 

 drinking. Chosen men kept their senses and guarded the approaches 

 to the camp or to the city where they celebrated the victory. 



I have said above that the dance of victory varied according to 

 the degree of civilization of the tribes which practiced it. The word 

 civilization does not really express my thought, for civilization is 

 entirely conventional. I should have said, " according to the more or 

 less sanguinar} 7 character of the tribes." 



In fact, the Opates who lived in the Sonora celebrated their vic- 

 tories by the ball of the scalps — that is, that in dancing they bore 

 in their hands the scalps torn from the enemies killed by them. They 

 also made the prisoners dance without allowing them to rest, but 

 they included among them the children, the old people, and the 

 women, and during the figures they burned them cruelly with torches 

 and firebrands. 



Other tribes more savage still — the fact is reported by the eminent 

 Mexicanist Alfredo Chavero 5 — cut off the hands of their enemies and 

 used them to stir the pinole 6 which they distributed to the con- 

 querors. The human blood was mixed with the drink, but the 

 dancers delighted in it, " the sentiment of vengeance," says Chavero, 

 " effacing the sensation of disgust." 



In speaking of the dance of victory the missionaries and the com- 

 mentators exaggerate the cruelty of the Mexicans, their barbarous 

 traits, which, however, have some foundation of fact. But if we 

 recall the revolutionary dances, to the accents of " Qa ira," around the 

 unfortunate victims of Eobespierre, of Marat, and of Couthon, 

 without taking account of still more recent events during certain 

 strikes in France and elsewhere, without mentioning the lynchings 

 of Negroes in the United States, we shall see that several centuries 

 after the conquest of Mexico, there are found in the most civilized 

 countries people who can at times rival in cruelty the barbarous 

 tribes. 



When in the seventeenth century several cities of New Mexico were 

 reconstructed, the first thing that the natives would do would be to 



6 Mexico a travel de los Siglos, Vol. I, p. 125. 



6 The pinole is a kind of chocolate. It is known that we owe to the ancient Mexicans 

 the invention of this foodstuff. To make the pinole they mixed coffee meal with sugar of 

 agave, and added to it either cocoa or pimento. In our day cinnamon is also added to it. 



