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Benito Juarez, who laid the foundations on which Diaz has so magnificently built, was a pure-blood Zapotec. From the Aztecs, the Tlaxcalans, Mixtecs, Zapotecs and Mayas, we may hope much in the future. They were races of achievement in the past, and the monuments of their achievement still remain. But that the Otomi, the Triqui, or the Mixe, should be made over by the schools is doubtful.
San Gregorio, the town of paper-making, is not far from Pantepec, and large quantities of the bark paper are beaten in the little village of Ixcoyotla, which belongs to this municipio. Asking an old Otomi whether he knew about this paper, he answered us, with great cunning, that we probably knew as much of it as he did.
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.
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.
The title does not necessarily mean that this song is a translation from the Otomi language, but merely that the time to which it was chanted was in the Otomi style; or, the term Otomi may have reference to the military officer so called. The word is perhaps a compound of otli, path, and mitl, arrow.
We were told that the church here, the chief church of our Otomi friends, is called "the church of the thieves," and that it was even lately a favorite resort of ladrones, who prayed for blessing upon their thieving expeditions and for release in case they should be taken captive.
I shall record in this note the names of the sun and moon in a great number of American and Asiatic idioms, again reminding the reader of the uncertainty of all judgments founded merely on the comparison of solitary words. Ojibbeway : Kissis : Debicot. Delaware : Natatane : Keyshocof. Nootka : Opulszthl : Omulszthl. Otomi : Hindi : Zana. Aztec or Mexican : Tonatiuh : Meztli.
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.
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.
We had been talking over this matter of a fighting force one afternoon in Fray Antonio's sacristy where our many colloquies were held, for we moved with a thoughtful deliberation in setting agoing our adventure and we had come almost to the determination of organizing a little force of Otomí Indians, and calling upon two brave young gentlemen of Fray Antonio's acquaintance to join us as lieutenants.