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The indians under his charge are Otomis, and in one little village, Santa Maria, Totonac. When we came to inquire regarding the pagan practice for which we were searching, we learned that it was peculiar to the Otomis, and formed their annual costumbre custom. They believe that Montezuma is to come again. Meantime, from him come health, crops, and all good things.
We have not studied it sufficiently to be sure that he is right; it is, however, certain that the language has been much affected by the Totonac, if it is not related to it, and many words in the two languages are the same.
The Chamula outbreak in 1868, and the Maya war just ended, are examples of this smouldering hatred. Mexico has a serious problem in its Indians; the solution of the problem has been attempted in various ways, according to whether the population dealt with was Totonac, Yaqui, Maya: it is no small task, to build a nation out of an indian population.
From there, by coach and on horseback, we visited Otomi, Aztec, Tepehua and Totonac towns in the states of Puebla and Hidalgo. With the field season of 1901, our work in Indian Mexico ended. It was pursued in three separated areas. From the City of Mexico, we went by rail to Tampico. From that point, a journey by canoe and horse enabled us to see the Huaxtecs of the state of Vera Cruz.
Mothers put babies onto one side, with their little legs astride a hip, and then tie them firmly in place with an ayate, or carry-cloth, of cotton, thus leaving their hands free for work or other burdens. If we had difficulty measuring the Totonac women, we had still greater difficulty in photographing satisfactory groups of them.
As soon as he was well enough to get about again, he joined Roger in a turkey hunt, and started the next day for the city. He returned with surprising news. The white men had marched from the coast through Naulinco and the Pass of Obispo. They had been everywhere well received by the natives, who all belonged to the Totonac tribe.
An old disabled soldier, named Juan de Torres, was left to watch over the sanctuary and instruct the natives in its services, while the general, taking a friendly leave of his Totonac allies, set out once more for Villa Rica, to finish his arrangements before departing for the capital.
Thirteen hundred Totonac fighting men accompanied them, and a thousand porters to drag the tubes and carry their baggage. They had sent embassies to the Tlascalans, but the latter had chosen war, and there had been some terrible battles fought.
We learned, however, that nature really had done the work, on the occasion of a flood, the result of a cloud-burst, which swept into the valley two or three years before. At several places in this stream, we saw groups of from two or three to ten or twelve Totonac indians, who were fishing with little nets.
"When a language resists a regular analysis," observes William von Humboldt, in his considerations on the Mexican, Cora, Totonac, and Tarahumar tongues, "we may suspect some mixture, some foreign influence; for the faculties of man, which are, as we may say, reflected in the structure of languages, and in their grammatical forms, act constantly in a regular and uniform manner."
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