Etbnoiogs, 75 



Indians, 1 and fortunately there is no prejudice against their race in 

 Mexico, and so when they are educated they are accepted in marriage 

 among the highest families of pure Spanish blood. 9 



I have been a great deal among them, and my knowledge of their 

 characteristics only increases my sympathy and admiration for them. 

 In the State of Oaxaca, for instance, where I spent the early years of 

 my life, I have seen Indians from the mountain districts, who, when 

 they had to go to the capital, especially to carry money, would form 

 parties of eight or ten to make a ten days' round trip, carrying with 

 them their food, which consists of roasted ground corn, which they 

 take three times a day ; stopping at a brook to mix it with water, and 



1 Sir William Kingston, President of the Surgery Section in the Second Pan- 

 American Medical Congress, held at the City of Mexico in October, 1896, in an in- 

 terview which was published by The Gazette of Montreal, Canada, of December 2, 

 1896, said, concerning his visit to Mexico, among other things : 



" The pure-blooded Indian was seen on all sides. . . . 



' ' The Spaniards would seem to have pursued the same course as was followed by 

 the original French settlers, they did not shove aside the native Indians as useless lum- 

 ber, to be gotten out of the way, as a distinguished Harvard professor puts it, but they 

 treated them as people in possession of the soil, with whom it was not only right but 

 proper to ally in marriage. I have always regarded our North American Indian as 

 the best type of the aborigines in stature. I still believe he is, but not so in intellect. 

 The broad, massive forehead of the native of Mexico, and his soft but prominent and 

 intelligent eye, are evidences of mental power. . . ." 



* I take from a spicy article published by Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, in Har- 

 per's Magazine for June, 1896, the following description of the dress of the poorer 

 classes in Mexico : 



" Herbert Spencer might extend here his comments on the relation of color to 

 sex. It is the theory that all the males of birds have gay plumage in order to make 

 them attractive to the other sex, while the females go in sober colors. This is also 

 supposed to hold true of barbarous nations. The men who dress at all, or use paint 

 as a substitute, wear bright colors and more ornaments than the women, while the gen- 

 tle sex is content to be inconspicuous. Needless to say that in what we call civiliza- 

 tion, this rule is reversed. The men affect plain raiment, while the women vie with 

 the tropical birds of the male gender. Tried by this test Mexico has not reached the 

 civilization of the United States. The women of the lower orders are uniformly sober 

 in apparel, and commonly wear drawn over the head a reboso in plain colors. The 

 scant dress is usually brown or pale blue. It is the men who are resplendent, even the 

 poorest and the beggars. The tall conical hats give to all of them an " operatic " dis- 

 tinction ; the lower integuments may be white (originally) as also the shirt and the 

 jacket ; or the man may have marvellous trousers, slit down the sides and flapping 

 about so as to show his drawers, or sometimes, in the better class, fastened down 

 with silver buttons ; but every man of them slings over his left shoulder or wraps 

 about him, drawing it about his mouth on the least chill in the air, a brilliantly col- 

 ored sarape, or blanket, frequently of bright red. Even if he appears in white cotton, 

 he is apt to wear a red scarf round his waist; and if he is of a higher grade, he has 

 the taste of a New York alderman for a cravat. This variety and intensity of color 

 in the dress of the men gives great animation and picturesqueness to any crowd in the 

 streets, and lights up all the dusty highways." 



