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In the little tank below, where the water lies so clear that everything is visible upon its bottom, one may see axolotls creeping. They are water-salamanders, but they have a strange history. Like frogs, they pass through a series of changes, and the larval is very different from the adult form. Our last evening at Huixquilucan, I went out to purchase native garments.
In the olden time Huixquilucan had a bad reputation for highway robberies. A great hill overlooking the town is called the hill of crosses, and here a cross by the wayside usually signifies a place of murder. Many a traveller in the not distant past found his way from here as best he could to the capital city minus burden and money, minus hat and shoes, and sometimes minus clothing.
At evening, after a fair day's work, we made our way on foot across the valley and up the long slope to the summit of the ridge on which lay Huixquilucan, the official centre of a municipality of 11,000 persons.
Thence, we struck, on horseback, through the Tarascan territory, across to Patzcuaro. On the way, we secured our full series of Tarascan busts, at the Once Pueblos. By rail, we went from Patzcuaro to Dos Rios, to secure our lacking busts of Otomis at Huixquilucan. In the second field expedition, January to March 1899, we worked entirely in the state of Oaxaca.
There was a moment's pause, and then we saw the answering crier take her place, and in the same clear, penetrating, unbroken, up-and-down voice, came back the reply. It was not favorable, and the old man apologized for the failure, as he kissed the padrecito's hand in parting. Some weeks later we were again at Huixquilucan, this time to secure some busts.
They still are ignorant, suspicious, and unprogressive. Huixquilucan, which we had chosen as our field for labor, is situated on a high ridge within sight of the National Railroad, at a distance of perhaps a mile and a half from the station of Dos Rios.
Only the portion of this journey between Oaxaca and Nenton is here described, the rest not lying in Indian Mexico. The City of Mexico was headquarters for the work in 1897-98. A trip was made by rail from there to Dos Rios, to measure and photograph the Otomis of Huixquilucan, in the state of Mexico.
In Tlaxco, a small village in this municipio, four idioms are spoken Aztec, Otomi, Totonac and Tepehua. Two years before, just as my work was ending, we were in the great Otomi town of Huixquilucan, in the state of Mexico. While resting at midday, I noticed a neatly-dressed and clean young indian, plainly not Otomi, with whom I conversed.
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