HRDLicKA] PHYSIOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS 19 



]\lazaliua still do much weaving and hat making.'* The Tlahuiltec 

 cidtivate a little land of their own, hut most of the men nre em- 

 ployed as laborers in the cane fields and distilleries of the neighbor- 

 ing haciendas, while many of the women make tortillas and carry 

 therji daily for sale to Coautla, more than 4 miles distant. The occu- 

 pation of the Opata and of most of the Mayo, Nahua, and Tarasco is 

 practically confined to agriculture. 



As burden carriers the Otomi men, and even the women, deserve 

 special mention, for they have no equals in northern Mexico. They 

 carry on their backs bulky and heavy loads for long distances. The 

 method of carrying these burdens is always the same. A strap, or 

 more often the bound ends of their ayates,^ passes around the bur- 

 den and over or above the forehead ; this is usually the only form of 

 attachment. The burden once lifted, often with difficulty, the Otomi 

 walks steadily, with even and rather short steps, the trunk and head 

 bent forward. While w^alking he may be weaving a hat strand, but 

 more often supports himself on a short stick carried in one hand.. 

 A man wdll carry thus in two days a large load of pottery or of som- 

 breros from one of the villages north of Tula to the City of .Mexico, 

 a journey of 40 or more miles. His only food on the road is a few 

 tortillas or tortillas with beans, toasted over a fire, but he drinks 

 pulque, if he can obtain it. He sleeps outdoors with one light and 

 often ragged blanket as his sole protection. Sometimes the wife, 

 burdened but slightly less than her husband, accompanies the latter 

 on his journeys. 



VI. FOOD 



The principal article of diet among the Indians throughout the 

 Southwest and Mexico is maize, which is eaten in the form of bread 

 of various kinds, or as mush, or boiled entire. It is also parched 

 on charcoal and eaten thus, or is ground into a fine meal, which, 

 sweetened, constitutes the nourishing pinole of some of the tribes. 

 Wheat is used in similar ways but less extensively. Next in impor- 

 tance to corn and wheat in the Indian diet are meat and fat and 

 beans. Meat is scarce. Beef and mutton are generally preferred 

 fresh, but are also cut in thin strips and preserved by drying in the 

 sun, constituting the so-called ''jerked meat." Fresh meat is pre- 

 pared chiefly by roasting near a fire on one or more sticks; or it is 

 cooked with corn or w^heat, and occasionally other vegetables, in 

 a stew. Fat and marrow are more liked and apparently better 

 assimilated by Indians of all tribes than by the whites. None of the 

 tribes visited eat under ordinary circumstances raw or even very 



o An exhibit of the material, including specimens of Indian work, collected by the writer, may be 

 seen in the American Museum of Natural History, 

 h A light but strong net woven from the fiber of a certain maguey (ixtle). 



