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PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY
FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE
REVEREND JOHN ALEXANDER MACKAY
LITT.D., D.D., LL.D., L.H.D.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
Princeton Theological Seminary Library
https://archive.org/details/glimpsesofindian00jord_0
MOUNTAIN INDIANS NEAR PUNO, PERU
11 1963
/
\
OCT
Glimpses of Indian
America
ILLUSTRATING PRESENT-DAY LIFE IN MEXICO
AND PARTS OF CENTRAL AND
SOUTH AMERICA
Ay
W. F. JORDAN,
Secretary, Upper Andes Agency of the
American Bible Society
Author of “ Crusading in the West Indies’ *
ILLUSTRATED
New York Chicago
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1923, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh : 75 Princes Street
Introduction
By Charles S. Detweiler
Secretary for Latin North America for the American
Baptist Home Missionary Society
THE highland Indians of Mexico, Central,
and South America are a distinct field of
missionary endeavor, the fringe of which
has scarcely been touched. Inhabiting the high val¬
leys and table-lands that form the backbone of the
continent, they themselves constitute the backbone
and bulk of the population. It is generally ac¬
knowledged, even by Roman Catholic writers, that
their condition to-day is worse than when they
were discovered and conquered by the united repre¬
sentatives of the Spanish Church and State. It is
true, however, that commendable efforts have been
made by different liberal governments to better
their condition in the matter of wages and to pro¬
tect them against abuse. In Mexico the revolution
begun by Madero brought them a large measure
of political liberty. But to elevate them and edu¬
cate them beyond the covers of the Roman Catholic
catechism, practically nothing has been done apart
from a few scattered and isolated evangelical mis¬
sion stations.
The greater part of the wretchedness of the
3
4
INTRODUCTION
Indians is the result of the attitude of mind of the
ruling class toward them. They are not supposed
to have any self-respect. Overseers frequently
strike them, and children of families where servants
are kept are accustomed to domineer over them in
a rude and heartless manner. The Indian has been
used as a beast of burden, and brutalised by whip¬
pings and strong drink. While not savages like
their brethren in the Amazon forests, they are yet
far from being civilised. They have simply been
domesticated.
This condition of the Indians is not a matter of
unconcern to many of the best people of Latin
America. Numerous projects of laws introduced
in the legislative bodies of the different countries
show that the Indian has friends and defenders in
high places, but mere legislative measures can never
cure ills that are of three centuries duration. A
few years ago there was held in Antigua, Guate¬
mala, a congress of delegates from five republics
for the purpose of framing a constitution for one
united Republic of Central America. Nearby, in
the Indian village of San Antonio, was a Protestant
missionary who availed himself of this unusual
opportunity to bear witness to the power of the
Gospel. The delegates were invited to listen to a
program prepared in their honor. First a large
group of Indian believers sang two hymns, fol¬
lowed by a specially trained Indian quartet. Then
there were exercises by the Indian children, and at
INTRODUCTION
5
the close a brief address. The response from the
delegates was instantaneous. A Guatemalan arose
to say that he had never seen anything like it; he
marveled to see what the gospel had done for a race
which their conquerors had always considered as
beasts. Another of the delegates in expressing his
appreciation, promised to try to interest his gov¬
ernment in the drainage of the swamps which
make the Indian towns so unhealthy. Whatever is
done by American Christians for these neglected
people is sure to awaken a hearty response in all
the forward looking minds of Latin America, and
will be to them the best possible commendation of
our Gospel.
The author of this book has had an unusually
successful career in promoting the sale and distri¬
bution of the Bible in Latin America. His min¬
istry brings him into close and constant contact
with all classes. Out of a full heart he writes a
record of his experiences and observations while
pursuing his chosen task, which is in reality a sin¬
cere plea for the down-trodden aborigines in the
lands south of us. As one who personally knows
the situation which Mr. Jordan describes, I am glad
to testify to the faithfulness of his portraits. The
case is not overstated. May God use this book to
awaken in Christians everywhere a genuine concern
for the evangelization of the long-suffering people
of Indo-America.
Preface
IT is a sense of personal responsibility that
brings me again before the reading public.
With the mute appeal of the sufferings of the
helpless descendants of the once powerful races of
whom I write constantly before my eyes, and with
their voiced cry for help ringing in my ears, the
obligation to add my quota to the effort being put
forth in their behalf becomes absolutely unavoid¬
able. “ Crusading in the West Indies ” was writ¬
ten to help make better understood the nature of
the work of the Society that is the Agent of the
American Churches in supplying the Nations with
the printed Gospel. The purpose of this volume is
to help the reader to feel, as I have felt after seeing
some of the things I have seen, in my extensive
travels during the last nine years in what I here
term Indian America.
I wish to express my gratitude to the American
Bible Society for the much-to-be-coveted oppor¬
tunity it has given me for service in such intensely
interesting fields as Mexico, Central, and South
America. The ready accessibility of the West
Coast of the latter via the Panama Canal has but
increased and intensified our responsibility for the
7
8
PREFACE
neglected condition of the Indian through the
whole Andean Region.
I also desire to thank my colleague, Rev. R. R.
Gregory, Secretary of the Caribbean Agency of
the American Bible Society, for his sympathetic
help ; as well as Miss Mabel Barnhouse, and
Miss Fannie Kingsbury, of the Canal Zone; Dr.
F. W. Goding, American Consul General of Guaya¬
quil, Ecuador; Mr. R. D. Smith, of Los Angeles;
Dr. Webster Browning, of the Committee on Co¬
operation in Latin America; Bishop William F.
Oldham, and others who have read my manuscript,
made corrections and suggestions and encouraged
me to proceed with its publication. May it prove a
contribution to the cause of the Master, in helping
to create a sympathetic understanding of the con¬
dition and need of those concerning whom I have
written !
Bible House,
Cristobal , Canal Zone .
W. F. J.
Contents
I. Indian America . . . .11
II. Yucatan and Campeche . . .25
III. Through the Land oe the Aztecs . 38
IV. Misconceptions Corrected . .51
V. In and Around the Aztec Capitae . 65
VI. The Bibee House, Cristobae, C. Z. 82
VII. Cristobal to Puno, Peru . . .95
VIII. The Highlands oe Southern Peru. 114
IX. Beautieue La Paz . . . .128
X. The Bolivian Interior . . . 145
XI. The Cradle oe the Incas . . 170
XII. The Macedonian Cry . . . 185
Index ...... 204
i
Illustrations
FACING PAGE
Mountain Indians Near Puno, Peru . title
Girl Spinning on Primitive Spindle . 16
Weaving a Beautifully Blended Fabric . 16
Indian Woman (San Bias) Panama . 84
Mexican Christian Woman Carrying Water. 84
Quechua and Aymara Indians Appealing to
Supt. Wilcox of Adventist Mission to Es¬
tablish Schools in Their Villages . 120
Christian Pupils and Teachers Celebrating
Independence Day, Plater ia, Peru . 120
Bolivian, Aymara, Indian Women in Char¬
acteristic Dress of Tableland Near La Paz. 136
Indian Mountain Home . 136
Aymara Indian Boys Pasturing Cattle and
Gathering Reeds in Marshes of Lake
Titicaca . 168
Sunday School, Arque, Bolivia . 168
Representative Quechua Indians in Cuzco
Appealing to Missionaries for Schools. . . . 196
Mr. Powlison Behind Prison Bars for the
Sake of the Gospel, San Pedro, Bolivia,
1922 . 200
Cakchiquel Indian Evangelists of Central
America Mission, Antigua, Guatemala .... 200
10
I
INDIAN AMERICA
GEOGRAPHICALLY, the Americas are
spoken of as North and South; politically,
as Anglo-Saxon and Latin. There is an¬
other America that is less frequently mentioned,
largely unknown to the rest of the world, almost
totally undeveloped, untouched, and unaided by
modern Christian and philanthropic effort, a sec¬
tion of which, in Central and South America, con¬
stitutes, according to the authors of the “ World
Survey,” “ The greatest stretch of unevangelized
territory in the world.” Here the population is
overwhelmingly Indian, and can, we think, be fit¬
tingly termed “ Indian America.”
By Indian America I mean particularly that
section of the New World inhabited by the de¬
scendants of those races whose forefathers had
established civilisations that were old before the
landing of Columbus. These people are to be
found in greatest numbers today in Mexico and
Gautemala of the Northern Hemisphere, and in
Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, of the Southern. In
all of these countries there are large racial groups
that retain their ancient customs, costumes and
11
12 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
languages in spite of 400 years of contact with
European civilisation. In all of them the Indian
blood predominates among the governed ; while the
ruling class and the clergy are largely white. In
three of them, Gautemala, Peru, and Bolivia, the
system of selling the Indians with the land still
prevails. In all of them the disinherited Indian
today exists by sufferance only, in his stone, mud,
or palm leaf hut, on land that belonged to his fore¬
fathers. In none of these countries did freedom
from Spain mean liberty for the Indian. It meant
simply license for the white, lineal or political de¬
scendant of the Spanish conquerors, to continue to
exploit the aborigines without being answerable to
the Spanish Crown. The condition of the Indian
in the so-called free republics became even more
pitiable than when he was under the tutelage of the
Monarchs of Spain.
Of these five countries, Mexico has made the
greatest strides towards the emancipation of the
Indian. Practically, as well as technically, he is
coming into his own in this latter country. The
abominable peonage system of slavery which flour¬
ished under the Diaz regime was abolished during
the last revolution. We no longer speak of Whites
and Indians in Mexico, but of Mexicans. Here
the Indian blood is beginning to come to the fore,
even among the ruling class. Mexico is not a
Latin nation and in our thinking we should not
consider it as such. The country designated on
INDIAN AMERICA
IB
our maps as Mexico consists of a heterogeneous
group of nations speaking many languages, differ¬
ing greatly in customs, but held together, whether
ruled or exploited, by a system of government that
is Latin.
I find, generally, no adequate conception of the
, characteristic virility and constancy that has kept
the masses of Mexico plodding on, earning a living
while its political leaders were trying to settle their
differences on the field of battle or in guerilla war¬
fare that left the whole country in an unsettled
condition. The burning question in Mexico today
is the land question, land not to hunt over, but to
cultivate. When this matter of homes and fields
for the disinherited has been satisfactorily settled,
this one characteristic of industry will cause
Mexico to be heard from in the future councils
of the nations. She produces too much of the
material the world needs and that commerce de¬
mands to allow herself to be long disregarded.
Then shall an American nation, American in blood
and prehistoric origin, instead of by immigration
and adoption, add its quota to the sum total of
human progress, and the value of her contribution
will not be ignored.
Let us give to those in power in these countries
credit for the best of intentions. The present
rulers are undoubtedly the choice of the military
chiefs who have secured control; but even they
would not venture to say that they are the choice
14 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
of the people. The fact is, the people have never
had any choice. The impressed soldiers fought
because they were compelled to do so. The readi¬
ness with which they have changed sides in a civil
war is notorious. The ignorant Indian, unable
to read, does not know what his political needs are.
There was a general feeling of dissatisfaction
with the Diaz regime in Mexico, with its system of
peonage and the giving out of all of the land of
the country to a few already wealthy men, thus
absolutely disinheriting the native races. The
people also hated the clergy because the church had
supported the peonage and land system. When
Diaz was gone and the foreign priests had been
expelled, they wanted peace, but longed for it in
vain, hecause the country was kept in turmoil by
warring factions among the leaders. The govern¬
ments of the countries mentioned are republican in
name only. With the present percentage of illiter¬
acy a democracy is impossible. The most that any
of their most advanced statesmen can do is to lead
them a step nearer to the point where they can have
a national consciousness and set out on the road to
a representative government. Let us not forget
the fact that the real Mexican or native of the
other countries mentioned is Indian. The great
majority are illiterate, never having had an oppor¬
tunity to learn. Whatever civilisation they had,
and much of it was valuable, was destroyed by the
conquest.
INDIAN AMERICA
15
Conquered and reduced to submission by the
treachery and superior weapons and armament of
the European, the Indian has been kept in subjec¬
tion and ignorance through the centuries. Look¬
ing vainly for relief from his life of drudgery and
hoping for liberty in the land of his fathers, he has
taken part voluntarily, or when forced to do so, in
revolutions and political uprisings against the
powers that were crushing him. Led to believe
that he was fighting for his liberties, he has always
discovered in the end that he had helped to put
down one set of oppressors only to find his head
still bowing under the yoke of another. The un¬
precedented prosperity of the landowning class
that developed in Mexico under Porfirio Diaz was
based upon the labour of the subjugated, oppressed
and brow-beaten Indian, and the systematic rob¬
bery of his land and labour, in the exploitation of
the apparently unlimited and inexhaustible re¬
sources of that great country.
It will be remembered that the Indians spoken
of here are the descendants of advanced and
cultured races, peoples among whom agriculture
had reached a high state of development. They
understood something of the sciences of metal¬
lurgy, architecture, and engineering, as is evi¬
denced by articles of bronze, stone edifices, and
irrigation works. They wove beautiful fabrics,
made robes of feathers, manufactured beautiful
inlaid pottery, and had made advances in astro-
16 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
nomical science and in literature. They had de¬
veloped a system of common land tenure, and were
governed under their native rulers far better than
has been their lot since the conquest.
The Indian of these countries today, in spite of
his degradation and periodical addiction to intoxi¬
cating liquors, is industrious, peace-loving, and, to
a surprising degree, artistic. Mexicans are fond
of flowers, weaving them into beautiful bouquets
and garlands. They are expert in making filagree
work from silver coins, and combine the feathers
of brightly hued birds into artistic pictures and
emblems. The Gautemalan weaves figured belts,
curtains, sashes, and dresses that are a dream of
artistically arranged figures in all the colours of
the rainbow. The Qmchuas and Aymaras in the
Andean region of South America weave their own
clothing from the wool of sheep and llama, make
their own felt hats, understand the making of
vegetable dyes for the wool and yarns which they
weave with appropriate blending and delightful
effect into their highly-coloured “ lijllas ” and
ponchos.
“There goes the two-footed gold of Gaute-
mala,” a former president of that country is said
to have remarked to a visitor, referring to an
Indian that had just brought him a message. The
implication was, that the prosperity and luxury of
the ruling class was based on unremunerated
Indian labour and that the Indian is classed as a
INDIAN AMERICA
17
domestic animal and valuable beast of burden.
Never to fade from memory while life shall last
are some of the sights of human degradation wit¬
nessed in continental travel south of the Rio
Grande; old women in Mexico City bowed low
under immense loads of scraggly fire wood held
in place by coarse ropes; men working in town
and country staggering under heavy loads that it
took four others to lift and place on their backs ;
women in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, tottering
along the stone-paved streets weighted down by
the enormous trunks of travelers; Indians from
the country in Bolivia carrying heavy logs on their
shoulders through the street while a policeman held
a stack of their home-made felt hats he had un¬
ceremoniously snatched from them and retained
until the forced task was completed. In Bolivia,
as well as in Gautemala, the Indian is looked upon
as the legitimate property of landlord, government
and police official. In some of these countries, the
best talent is of Indian origin. Benito Juares, the
Washington of Mexico, was a full blood Indian,
as are some of the present leaders in that country.
There is abundant proof that the real “ gold ” of
Gautemala is to be found in the undeveloped
mental and spiritual capacities of the native
Indian, rather than in the debasing exploitation of
his muscular forces as implied by his Excellency.
The trip from the railway terminal at San
Felipe to Quezaltenango, the most important town
18 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
in the highlands of Gautemala and the second city
of the country, has been rendered most beautiful
by nature’s prodigal hand. The early morning air
is filled with the perfume of the coffee blossoms
while bright-feathered birds utter harsh and stri¬
dent cries from their hiding places in the luxuriant
foliage which, in the lower reaches of the valley, is
abundantly watered by the never- failing river. In
order to take advantage of the cool morning air,
we started on our journey long before daylight.
From the very first, and through the day until we
arrived at our destination, we met groups of In¬
dians bringing the products of the interior down
the mountain side on their backs, in packs weighing
from 125 to 150 pounds each. These packs were
held in place on the loins by ropes attached to a
wide strap over the forehead like the breeching of
the harness of a horse- — the human pack animal
carrying the burdens of Gautemala. All the way
along, at the bottom of the deep gorge below the
road, was to be seen a rushing, bounding river
with power enough going to waste to carry, if
harnessed, all the traffic of Gautemala, and supply
power for other industrial purposes as well. The
scene presented a vivid illustration of the way in
which the system of human slavery blinds the eyes
of those who exploit their fellowmen to the forces
of nature that surround them, so that they are
untouched by any ambition to dominate, subdue,
and develop these possible sources of power.
INDIAN AMERICA
19
I was curious to know what these Indians, we
met, were bringing down from the highlands for
export to the outside world. Examining one of
the packs, I found it to be composed of a large
number of bundles of the little rootlets from which
our scrubbing brushes are made. I remember, as a
boy, examining such a brush and coming to the
conclusion that it must be made from the roots of
some plant, but I did not before know from where
they came. The lady members of our household
are serving us when they use these brushes in their
house cleaning. These poor down-trodden Indians
of Gautemala are just as truly serving us when
they dig from the pampa, wash and clean these
rootlets, tie them into bundles and carry them on
their backs, bowing under the heavy burden until
they reach the port from whence the merchandise
is to be shipped to our more favoured land.
Toward evening, we passed the Indian village
of Zunil huddled in a widening of the valley. We
had looked forward to seeing the homes of these
artistic people who, in spite of their enslaved con¬
dition, have kept alive the love of the beautiful
that finds expression in their wonderful fabrics.
What a disappointment awaited us! It was the
occasion of one of the many church festivals.
Outside of the rumshop at the left of the road
running by the village were Indians in all stages
of intoxication. One woman wearing a beautiful
home-woven belt lay unconscious beside some hogs
20 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
wallowing in the dirt. A little child was trying to
rouse her. A man came out of the rumshop and
tried to assist the child in getting the mother’s
attention. Soon all three, overcome by the poison
they had been drinking, lay dead drunk on the side
of the road.
Cries attracted my attention to the door of the
drinking place. Two intoxicated Indian women
were leading away a third crazed by the effects of
the drink. Her disheveled hair fell over her face,
obscuring it. In her frenzied efforts she nearly
freed herself from those holding her: but finally
the three staggered along the path over the bridge
into the desolate village, followed by the toddling
child of one of the women. The Government of
Gautemala prohibits the exportation of sugar, in
order that the cane may be used in the manufac¬
ture of the rum that brings in a substantial revenue
by the exploitation of the Indians’ weakness for a
periodical drunk. Gautemala is not alone in its
exploitation of this weakness of a depressed and
down-trodden people. A South American writer
says of this vice: “The Church supplies the
festivals and the Government the rum which com¬
bine to work the ruin of the Indian.”
Traveling by rail from Mexico City to Laredo,
Texas, early in 1917, I took with me several hun¬
dred Gospels for distribution on the way. While
our train was waiting at Queretero, I noticed some
soldiers standing on the platform. Beckoning to
INDIAN AMERICA
21
one to approach the car in which I was sitting, I
asked if he could read. Upon his reply in the af¬
firmative, I gave him a Gospel. Taking it back to
where he had been standing, he began turning over
the leaves. Another soldier looking over his
shoulder at the booklet inquired where it came
from, and was directed to the car window at which
I sat. When he came and asked if I had a book
for him also, I told him that I would like to give
a Gospel to every soldier that could read. Soon
the car window was besieged with soldiers asking
for Gospels.
By this time the curiosity of the crowd wa9
aroused. Seeing the soldiers receiving books,
others wanted them. Many children, as well as
grown people, crowded around the car window
holding up their hands for books. I had pur¬
posely arranged the Scripture portions in sets of
five, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Proverbs.
Holding up a book, I would ask them the name on
the cover in order to prove to me that they could
read. One little boy read promptly the name
“ San Mateo ” and received the book. The next
in order was Mark. As I held out the book to
another boy who was reaching out his hand for
one, he said “ San Mateo,” but did not receive the
book since it was “ San Marcos.” From my posi¬
tion above them I was able to tell whether or not
they could read. If I saw the lips moving in an
attempt to spell out the title, I would give the
22 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
applicant a book because he had thereby demon¬
strated that he knew his letters and would be able
to read it. The crowd about the car window was
such that it annoyed the train officials and they
tried in vain to drive them away. Just as the train
was pulling out of the depot, a little boy who had
just come up ran along beside the car, crying out
as if his heart would break, “ A mi no me han
dado , a mi no me hand dado ” — “ They haven’t
given me! They haven’t given me !”
Although these expressions came from a child
who did not realise what it was he had not re¬
ceived, his beseeching words haunted me for
months. They seemed so typical of the condition
of these Indian races of America. How many of
the good things of life are we enjoying that we
have not given to them? We have not given them
our knowledge of agriculture and machinery to
enable them to secure the comforts of life. We
have not given them doctors or nurses or hospitals
to help them out in their battle with disease. We
have not given them even a primary education.
Nor have we given them the simple Gospel which,
being the “ power of God unto salvation,” is able
to raise them above the level of the beasts and
make them co-workers with God in establishing
His kingdom upon earth. Surely this accusing
cry with its appeal must reach the ear of our
Heavenly Father. Would that it might reach our
ears and cause us to respond so heartily that
INDIAN AMERICA
23
Indian America shall no longer be able to say,
“ They haven’t given me.”
Passing through the highlands of Ecuador re¬
cently and noting the wretched huts of the Indians
scattered about the estates of the wealthy land-
owners, I had impressed upon my mind as never
before the fact that the true riches of America
have not yet been discovered and developed.
Columbus saw land, glory, and a way to the
Indies; Pizarro, Cortez and their followers saw
gold and power; the Spanish monarchs, gold,
power, and satisfied ambition. None of these saw,
nor have the ruling classes yet seen, that the real
wealth of xAmerica was and is still to be found in
its people. Neglected for 400 years, they are now
looking to us for help in an effort to rise out of
their degraded condition and make themselves men.
“ We want civilisation , Give us Christian Schools,”
they cry to the writer, and beseech him to carry
their appeal to the people he represents. May this
call for help find quick response in the great heart
of the Christian Church.
Wallace Thompson well says in urging the co¬
operation of Business and Missions in extending
help to these prostrate Masses in “ Trading with
Mexico,” “ There is hope for Mexico, and that
hope is tied up with the opportunity for foreign
help . . . this single ray of clean, clear light can
be recognised by all as one of the great hopes in
the horizon today.” . . .
24 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
“ The desertion of the masses by the revolution¬
ary Government and the exile of the natural aris¬
tocracy have brought the human problem of the
country home with tremendous force to the for¬
eigners. It lies today almost solely in their hands,
and seems likely to wait long for rescue or aid
from any other source whatever.”
There was an appeal to the heroic, to the spirit
of adventure, and to the desire for power and
glory in the idea of the discovery and conquest of
new lands and races and their subjugation to the
crown of Spain. If we could but grasp the vision
and hear the call, there is an even stronger appeal
today to these same emotions, sanctified, spiritual¬
ised, in the idea of bringing these same Indian
nations into the kingdom of our Lord and Master,
prompted by His love, authorised by His Word,
and inspired by the promise of His presence and
power. The early discoverers and conquerors
were willing to risk all on the merest chance of
success. The greatest cause of the ages, that of
winning the world for Christ, is not to be espoused
without self-denial, risk, and adventure, but the
reward is sure and the riches to be obtained
imperishable.
II
YUCATAN AND CAMPECHE
MY first glimpse of Indian America was in
September, 1914. Being in Havana on
my way to take the boat for New York
after a trip through the West Indies, I received a
cable indicating that the Society wished me to go
at once to Mexico, study the situation there, and
make suggestions regarding the best way of con¬
tinuing the work of Bible distribution under pre¬
vailing conditions. Taking with me funds in the
shape of gold and drafts on New York, I made
arrangements for sailing the same day for Yuca¬
tan, the nearest Mexican state. All Mexico had
been torn with internal strife. The Madero-
Carranza-Villa revolution had, however, appar¬
ently succeeded. There was a lull in aggressive
military activities, but the country was in a badly
disorganised condition.
The missionary work of the American Bible
Society had been continued throughout the revolu¬
tion. The country was pretty well covered by
native colporteurs, many of them barefooted or
sandaled Indians living on a comparative pittance,
but happy to be able to employ their time in carry-
25
26 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
ing the Gospel to their fellow-countrymen. Dur¬
ing the Diaz regime the postal system had been
good, and the Bible Society was accustomed to
send these men their monthly allowances in the
form of postal money orders. At the time of
which I write internal disorganisation greatly in¬
terfered with the efficiency of the postal service.
There had been delays in the delivery of letters.
Then there was delay in the payment of money
orders because of lack of funds in the local post
offices. Finally the government repudiated all
obligation regarding them. This left many of
these humble workers in a pitiful condition. Some
of them had their salary for several months in
worthless paper when what they needed was food
and clothing for their wives and children. Part
of my mission was to get in touch with and pay
off these men wherever possible.
Owing to the shallow water that surrounds the
low-lying peninsula of Yucatan, our ship anchored
several miles from shore off Progreso, the princi¬
pal port. Passengers and mail were taken ashore
on a tug belonging to the Steamship Company.
The coast here is low and sandy with the usual
tropical trimming of palm-thatched huts under
graceful cocoanut trees, whose waving tops indi¬
cate the constant breeze, which, in all this region,
modifies the terrific heat.
Immediately after landing upon the wharf,
where customs and other officials examined our
YUCATAN AND CAMPECHE
27
hand-baggage, passports, and vaccination certifi¬
cates, I made my way to the office of the Steam¬
ship Company in order to secure some Mexican
money in exchange for American currency. Mr.
deCourcey kindly offered to purchase the Ameri¬
can paper currency that I had at the current rate.
In making the correct change he drew from his
pocket a number of coins, among which was a
Mexican silver dollar with a suspicious-looking
dent in the center. My curiosity being aroused, I
asked the cause of the dent. I was told that a few
nights before our arrival the revolutionary forces
had come to take charge of Yucatan. A few shots
had been fired. One of the bullets had found its
lodging place against this coin in Mr. deCourcey’s
shirt pocket as he was sitting at home. The spot
on his breast was still black from the impact of the
blow. Since his life had been saved by the pres¬
ence of the coin, he intended carrying it for the re¬
mainder of his life. Except for these few prelimi¬
nary shots there had been no fighting. Yucatan
had suffered less from the effects of the revolution
than many other parts of Mexico.
We took the evening train to Merida, the capital
of the State. Everywhere there was evidence of
the chief industry of the country, namely, the pro¬
ducing and exporting of the henequen or sisal fiber
utilised in the manufacture of binder twine for the
farmers in America. The peninsula of Yucatan
consists almost entirely of a low-lying elevation of
28 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
lime-stone. There is very little soil, so little that
in planting corn, holes in the rock must be sought
out in which to drop the seed. The agave cactus,
from the leaves of which the strong fiber is ex¬
tracted, thrives, however, when planted in small
excavations in this rock. The railroad from the
port to Merida runs between the great fields of the
agave plantations. One wonders how it is possible
for this apparently barren land to produce any¬
thing; j^et this bare rock is the source of the wealth
of Yucatan.
Merida is a city of windmills. There may be
other cities with as many in proportion to their
size, but I have never seen one. Apparently every
property owner having a piece of land of any size
possesses a windmill. These are all of American
manufacture and are used for pumping up the
fresh underground water which lies but a short
distance below the surface. Yucatan is without
surface rivers. The water percolating through the
porous rock forms underground streams that, all
over the peninsula, are a source of water supply
for drinking and for irrigation. These rivers are
but a short distance below the surface, and in
various places there are openings down to them.
At some of the openings, steps are hewn in the
rock down to the surface of the water. These
open sink holes are called cenotes, and the water
is inhabited by a species of fish with but rudi¬
mentary eyes.
YUCATAN AND CAMPECHE
29
Scrupulous cleanliness seemed to be the watch¬
word of the Yucatecan or Maya Indian. The
Maya was one of the civilizations destroyed by the
Spaniards, and the Maya Indian one of the races
enslaved by the conquerors. In spite of their con¬
dition of serfdom, in spite of their enforced pov¬
erty, and four hundred years of oppression, they
have retained their language, many of their cus¬
toms, costumes, and habits of cleanliness. The
Indian labourer of Yucatan bathes twice a day,
washes his clothes every day, and on Sundays and
gala days always dresses in spotless white. Bare¬
footed or shod in sandals, their feet are as clean
as their hands. The Yucatecos were not slow in
showing their displeasure and disgust at the un¬
cleanly habits of the soldiers of the Constitution¬
alist army, who were mostly Indians from the
north, many of them Yaquis. “ Son gente muy
distinta,” (“They are a very different class of
people.”) was a phrase frequently repeated by the
Yucatecos for my benefit. They did not wish me
to make the mistake of considering these other
Mexicans as natives^of their beloved State. They
consider themselves the Yankees of Mexico.
Some loyal sons of the state will go so far as to
deny that they are Mexicans. “We are Yuca¬
tecos, ” they say.
There are, comparatively speaking, very few
white people in Yucatan. At the time of the con¬
quest the land was parcelled out among the con-
SO GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
querors, and the Indians living upon the soil were
apportioned with it. Since that time until the last
revolution, the Indians had been considered the
property of the land-owner. They were bought
and sold with the land, were not allowed to leave
the plantation on which they lived while they were
in debt to the owner, and he took good care to see
that they remained indebted to him.
In the lobby and the dining room of the hotel
at Merida were many of the land-owning class.
One peculiarity which I noticed immediately was
that there was no loud talking. The groups at the
small tables spoke in voices that were hardly above
a whisper. A person at the next table could not
hear what was being said. This gave the impres¬
sion, which I learned afterwards was correct, that
every speaker was afraid of being heard outside
of his own little group. These people, being of
the wealthy class, were opposed to the revolution,
but did not care to voice their opposition loud
enough to be heard by anyone sympathising with
the victorious party.
I found that the main topic of conversation was
a decree that had just been promulgated to the
effect that the Indians throughout the land were to
be allowed their freedom; that henceforth, in
Mexico, no man’s body could be held because of
debt. For the first time in four hundred years the
aboriginal inhabitants of Yucatan, descendants of
the highly civilised Maya race whose land is full
YUCATAN AND CAMPECHE
31
of prehistoric ruins, could say their souls were
their own. Among the more intelligent of the In¬
dians there was great rejoicing because of this
decree. Owing, however, to a false interpreta¬
tion, propagated by the land-owners, the decree
was misunderstood by many. The Indians were
told that they could now no longer remain in their
quarters on the plantations, but must seek lodging,
food, and employment elsewhere. In many in¬
stances they were preparing to start in companies
and by families for the forest where they would
surely have perished. The newly constituted
authorities were obliged, therefore, to send out
men to the plantations all over the country, who
could speak the Maya language, to explain to the
Indians the real meaning of the proclamation.
Not only were they not obliged to leave the plan¬
tations of their former owners, but they could not
be forced to leave. They were free to go and come
as they pleased, but need not continue to work
without wages.
By this prompt action a disaster was prevented.
The Indians remained in their homes, and there
occurred in Yucatan that which has happened in
other countries upon the liberation of slaves. The
land-owners who had been kind to their peons
were besieged by applicants for work, while those
who had been cruel were deserted. One gentle¬
man who felt free to talk to me because he was
not afraid to express his opinions to an American,
32 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
also because he wanted to excite sympathy for his
party among Americans, was very severe in his
denunciation of this proclamation of liberty for
the peons. He said that all his Indians had left
him and that he could not get a man to work on
the plantation. Unwittingly he thus revealed his
type of character. I knew there were other men
who had more applicants for labour than they
could possibly employ.
Immediately after my arrival in Merida, I sent
a messenger in search of the colporteur, Sr.
Herrera. He came to the hotel with a story of
suffering and embarrassment because of his in¬
ability to get money orders cashed. He was
surprised and delighted to know that I was wil¬
ling to take up the orders and give him money
for them.
Having arranged matters satisfactorily with Sr.
Herrera, I decided to leave the next morning, by
rail, for Campeche, the capital of the neighbour¬
ing State of the same name, and the home of an¬
other colporteur. It was an all day journey by
slow train through a hot and uninviting country.
I could not, however, get over my first pleasant
surprise at the neatness and good taste of the In¬
dian population. There were groups of women at
every railway station with lunches composed of
bread, fruit, tortillas, roast venison, etc., which
they offered for sale to the passengers. So clean
were these women in appearance that the idea of
YUCATAN AND CAMPECHE
33
eating food prepared by their hands was not in
the least repulsive.
The women of Yucatan wear an outer sack-like
garment of one piece with three holes in the top,
one for the head and another for each arm. This
is usually prettily embroidered and does not come
down so far but that the broad lace border of the
under garment shows below. The dress of the
men consists of a pair of light blue trousers, a knit
cotton shirt drawn down over the trousers, and a
short white apron extending from the waist to the
knees. On Sundays and holidays this apron is
discarded and a better pair of trousers worn with
a long white coat. Both men and women are
either barefooted or sandaled. All seemed to have
some occupation and my first impressions of the
Yucatecos were altogether favourable. They were
the cleanest aborigines I had ever seen and put to
shame many people of European origin in their
attention to personal cleanliness.
Although arriving at Campeche after dark, I
had no difficulty in inquiring my way to the home
of Sr. L. Blanco, the pastor of the local congre¬
gation and brother of our colporteur. Both of
these men are full blood Indians, as were also the
other pastors whom I met, with the exception of
Sr. E. Llera, of Progreso, who was a Cuban.
Pastor Blanco welcomed me to his home, where
I slept that night in a hammock strung across the
room, as do most Yucatecos. The following
3 4 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
morning I visited the home of our colporteur and
found his wife engaged in weaving a beautiful
spacious hammock from the fiber of the agave.
Having made them happy by changing their worth¬
less money orders for gold, I returned the same
day to Merida.
The day before, after I had boarded the train
at Merida, a man, whom I supposed at the time to
be a representative of some local newspaper, ap¬
proached, asking my name, nationality, and desti¬
nation, all of which he wrote in a note-book. See¬
ing that the same man continued with us on the
train, I watched for an opportunity to question
him in turn. I found him to be the health in¬
spector whose business it was to examine all
strangers traveling in the country, and to take
their temperature.
“ Why ? ” I asked.
“ Oh, just a precaution against yellow fever.”
“ And have you yellow fever now in Yucatan? ”
“ Yes, there are several cases. I took a China¬
man to the hospital this morning, whom we sus¬
pected to be coming down with it. If I find a
foreigner with half a degree of fever, it is my
business to take him in charge.”
“ And why foreigners in particular ? ”
“ Because they alone are subject to yellow fever.
Our own people are immune.”
Waiting with the crowd at Campeche for the
gates to open to allow us on board the train, I
YUCATAN AND CAMPECHE
35
noticed another Health Inspector with a soiled
towel over one shoulder, and a thermometer in his
hand, approaching some Syrians and taking their
temperature. After putting the thermometer in
the mouth of one, he would wipe it on the
towel and approach another. Realising that he
would soon be coming my way, I began to figure
how to avoid taking the thermometer into my
mouth.
Soon the Inspector’s eye fell upon me and,
pointing the thermometer at my mouth, he started
in my direction. Meanwhile I had begun to un¬
button my shirt in front. Addressing him cheer¬
fully I said, “ So you are the gentleman who is
looking after the health of us foreigners? We
ought to be grateful to you for this trouble.” I
then took the thermometer and thrust it under my
left arm. He looked somewhat surprised and,
after a little hesitation, said:
“ That is alright. You can take the tempera¬
ture under the arm.”
When, after due time, he took the thermometer
and looked at it, he made the remark :
“You are alright. Your temperature is sub¬
normal.”
I knew it would be. Possibly the fact that I
put the thermometer rather far under my arm had
something to do with it. I wrote Mrs. Jordan at
the time, however, that the very thought of the
possibility of being placed in an isolation ward in
36 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
a Mexican hospital in Campeche caused a fall in
my temperature.
We had not gone very far on our return trip to
Merida when our train was held at a station much
longer than the usual time. Passengers began to
be impatient. Inquiry elicited the fact from the
conductor that the train was held by order of the
governor. Such a thing was unusual. There had
been very little disturbance in Yucatan; and there
were loud protests against the governor for delay¬
ing a train full of passengers who had business at
the other end of their journey. Finally, however,
one man remarked :
“ Perhaps there is trouble ahead. In that case I
thank the governor for holding the train.” The
effect of this remark was like magic. I did not
hear another complaint.
After an hour or so of delay the train proceeded
without any further incident, until just before
coming into the suburbs of Merida a few short
explosions were heard; whether gun fire or not, I
never learned. Our car was instantly in commo¬
tion. Men stood up in their seats and removed
revolvers from their hip pockets. Nothing
further, however, occurred; but we entered the
city long after the usual hour for the arrival of
the train. The last incident shows the condition
of uncertainty and fear for their lives in which
the members of the former ruling class of Mexico
were then living.
YUCATAN AND CAMPECHE
37
At the time of my first visit there was no for¬
eign missionary in Yucatan, Rev. and Mrs. J. T.
Molloy being at the time in the States. I was
asked to speak at the Presbyterian church in
Merida, and was much pleased to learn that it was
an indigenous self-supporting church, the pastor
being Mr. Asuncion Blanco, brother of the pastor
in Campeche, and a Maya Indian. It was a pleas¬
ure to lead their Bible class in the morning and
speak to a large congregation at night, composed,
in its entirety, of Indians. The organist was bare¬
foot, with the exception of the sandals he wore to
keep the soles of his feet from the ground. The
singing of the Spanish hymns was hearty and full
of expression.
In the cities of Yucatan Spanish is spoken, as
well as the native Maya. In the country villages
and on the plantations, however, Maya was all that
was heard. Many white people speak the Maya
both in their homes and in daily intercourse with
their neighbours.
There are not as many women to be seen on the
streets of Merida as on the streets of a town of its
size in Cuba or Porto Rico, and those who are in
the street do not appear to be there in order to
show off their fine clothing. The first visit to
Mexico produced an ever-increasing impression
of the seriousness and stability of the Mexican
character.
Ill
THROUGH THE LAND OF THE AZTECS
A DAY and a half were required to go
through the formalities connected with se¬
curing a military passport for Vera Cruz.
The day we sailed from Progreso, another vessel
laden with federal soldiers sailed for Puerto
Mexico, from which point they were to be sent to
their homes. Their places had been taken by the
new Constitutionalist army which was everywhere
in evidence throughout Yucatan and Campeche.
Although the revolutionary army was composed
largely of ragged, unwashed Indians from North¬
ern Mexico, their spirit and attitude could but pro¬
duce a good impression. The spirit was one of
progress, reaching out and fighting for liberty and
better things. Mere boys, many of them, it was
touching to see the hero worship in their eyes as
they regarded some of their superior officers.
One was impressed by the atmosphere of hopeful¬
ness, enthusiasm, and confidence as well as by the
evident comradeship between the officers and men.
Did these soldiers not have reason to be happy?
They had been successful in their fight, first
against the dictator Diaz on whose side were all
38
THE LAND OF THE AZTECS
39
the wealthy land-owners and the clergy; then,
against the cruel Huerta? Had not the day of
equal opportunity come? Had they not within the
past few days seen thousands of their Maya com¬
patriots set at liberty? Had not the day of free¬
dom and equality for all arrived? Of course they
could not hear the mutterings of the storm that
was to come, in which those who had fought side
by side for liberty from the oppressors were to be
divided into Villistas, Zapatistas, and Carranzistas
and carry on for years a fratricidal strife. In
spite of this internal disorganisation, however, the
people of Mexico were no longer slaves of the
grasping land-owner, and are today more free than
ever before to work out their own destinies.
Schools have been established where the people
had never been allowed to learn to read before.
An ideal of the army leaders was that every soldier
should know how to read. Many a time have I
passed the barracks where classes were being held
and seen groups of raw, unlettered Indians pain¬
fully spelling out words under the direction of a
comrade who could not read fluently himself.
We very frequently came in contact with army
officials who seemed to have the highest good of
their soldiers at heart. In August, 1915, the mili¬
tary authorities in Mexico City gave colporteur
Luis Rodriguez a letter of introduction permitting
him to visit the various barracks where soldiers
were quartered, for the distribution of the Bible.
40 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
The first encampment that he visited was at the
“ Hacienda del Cristo,” near Mexico City. The
Colonel in charge said to him :
“ This is a remarkable coincidence. I was
telling my officers just last night that we needed a
religion. It is impossible to make our troops
moral without it. We may talk morality to them
all we wish, but if we have no religion, there is
nothing to hold them. I am at your service, sir.
I will call the men together so that you can give
them books, and I wish you would talk to them.”
The officer, Colonel Leal, then ordered the bugle
sounded to assemble the men and, after a short
speech, introduced Mr. Rodriguez. The men
listened with intense interest while he explained
that as representative of the American Bible So¬
ciety he wanted to give each of them a Gospel as
an indication of good will on the part of Evan¬
gelical Christians. He then requested the Colonel
to have those of the regiment who could read, step
fonvard and receive a book. With pardonable
pride and satisfaction, Colonel Leal informed him
that they had a school in the regiment and every
man among them could read.
The Rev. F. F. Wolfe, of Puebla, gave some
Gospels to a sergeant. In two hours7 time the
man returned with a list of names of twenty sol¬
diers who had asked him for more Gospels.
Shortly after, Mr. Wolfe received word from the
Colonel in charge requesting more books, saying
THE LAND OF THE AZTECS
41
that he had found this reading matter a great aid
to discipline among his soldiers.
On my second visit to Yucatan, in 1916, in an
interview with General Alvarado, he said :
“ It may seem strange to you after our past
history that we should be giving such liberty to
Protestant workers. The fact is, we now have
religious liberty and welcome good people of all
nations and cults. Jews and Mohammedans are
as free to conduct worship in their own manner
as Catholics and Protestants so long as they do not
interfere in politics.
“ The expulsion of foreign priests was for po¬
litical and not religious reasons. The recent
trouble in Yucatan was fomented, encouraged, and
supported by the priests who, together with the
unscrupulous wealthy landlords, are alone respon¬
sible for the present ignorance and poverty of the
people. Morally the priests are rotten, given to
bull fighting, drunkenness, gambling, and women,
turning their residences and churches into harems.
They spend their time in the churches with women
who, under the pretext of going to mass and con¬
fession, are made the tools by which they carry
out their nefarious political schemes.
“We have abolished the terrible system of slav¬
ery that prevailed on the plantations in Yucatan
and have made the people free. I have prohibited
bull fighting and cock fighting, suppressed gam¬
bling, stopped the sale of liquor, and have estab-
42 GLIMPSES 0-F INDIAN AMERICA
lished schools all over the country. We are on the
threshold of a new era of moral progress and
material prosperity. You are welcome to go about
the country and see and hear for yourself what is
being done.”
I did go about the country with eyes and ears
open as the General had suggested. I visited three
of the largest towns in Yucatan on Saturday
nights during the carnival season, and did not see
a single intoxicated person. I found no resent¬
ment among the people for this absolute prohibi¬
tion of liquor. The new law required that schools
be established upon every plantation employing a
certain number of families. I visited some of
these plantations and found that the new law had
gone into effect and that every child of school age
was being provided for.
While the Mexican leaders could not carry out
their ideals because of disagreement among them¬
selves, the ideas of liberty and progress, advanced
by the revolutions, remained; and ideas, after all,
are the only things that move the world. Because
of the dissemination of these ideas in the minds
of the Indians, from whom such ideas had been
most assiduously kept by the governing classes and
the clergy, Mexico is, today, one of the most needy
and promising fields for all kinds of evangelistic,
educational, and social uplift work.
The morning we were to arrive at Vera Cruz I
had risen before daylight and gone on deck, hoping
THE LAND OF THE AZTECS
43
to get a glimpse of the snow-capped peak of Ori¬
zaba. At first it seemed as though I was doomed
to disappointment. The horizon looked hazy and
no mountains were to be seen. Suddenly, how¬
ever, just before sunrise there burst into view a
white triangular spot which shone clearly through
the haze and looked like a cloud reflecting the
glory of the rising sun. This was the looked-for
peak. It was some minutes before the outline of
the surrounding mountains became visible. Ori¬
zaba alone could be seen, majestically reflecting
from its snowy crown the rays of the morning sun.
On our arrival at the harbour of Vera Cruz,
which was then in the hands of the Americans,
our ship was boarded by the port doctor, who took
the temperature of all the passengers. When we
asked him what Yucatan was being quarantined
against, he said, “ smallpox,” but did not seem to
know of the yellow fever.
There were many Mexicans of the former rul¬
ing class in Vera Cruz glad to avail themselves of
the protection of Uncle Sam. There was not the
same secrecy manifested among the conversing
groups that there had been in Yucatan. Sure of
protection and emboldened by the fact that they
hoped soon to leave the country, there was no
hesitancy in their denunciation of the constitu¬
tional rabble, as they termed the successful revo¬
lutionists. One realised, from hearing them talk,
that at last the day of the aborigines in Mexico
44 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
was coming. This revolution had not brought and
would not bring Utopia, but the old peonage sys¬
tem by which the inhabitants were sold with the
land, or passed from one land-owner to another
by a transfer of account, was gone forever. No
longer would human beings be bought and sold
like cattle. In spite of appearances to the contrary,
Mexico had taken a long step toward liberty and
popular government.
The railway train from Vera Cruz to Mexico
City was crowded. While most first class pas¬
sengers were able to obtain a seat, the second class
cars were filled to the limit. Not only were the
aisles filled with persons standing or sitting on
their baggage,, but the platforms and steps of
every coach were jammed full. There was no
organisation or system. The jam at the larger
railway stations was terrific. The people would
come and remain at the station day after day wait¬
ing for an opportunity to crowd through the gate
and get on to the train. Pickpockets abounded in
every crowd. Not only were pocket-books stolen,
but all kinds of hand baggage would disappear if
one was not careful to keep it constantly in view.
As our train traversed the country and climbed
the mountain range up to the central tableland on
which Mexico City is located, I realised how abso¬
lutely disinherited these descendants of the Aztecs
were. It was pathetic in the extreme and made
one’s blood boil to see families of human outcasts
THE LAND OF THE AZTECS
45
crawling out of the holes that served as entrances
to rude mud or stone huts to gaze upon the pass¬
ing train.
When we reached the city of Orizaba, delight¬
fully situated on the slopes of the mountain of the
same name, we were advised that the train would
go no farther that day. One of the old Diaz
officers, Hijinio Aguilar, had taken to the moun¬
tains with a few followers, sent a wild-cat engine
down the mountain, wrecked a train, and torn up
a stretch of track. We could not continue our
journey until the soldiers of the new administra¬
tion had driven Mr. Aguilar and his followers
away, and repaired the track. The train did not
proceed until the following Monday. Meanwhile
I was able to visit the local congregation, get ac¬
quainted with some of the workers, and meet the
family of a former colporteur whose son was con¬
tinuing the work of Bible distribution. Since the
hostelries were full and I was unable to secure
hotel accommodations, Rev. Miguel Rojas, pastor
of the Methodist congregation, very kindly allowed
me to make use of a room in the quarters of the
missionaries, Rev. and Mrs. F. F. Wolfe, who
were away on furlough.
Even a stranger could see at a glance that the
city of Orizaba was living under a new regime,
and one which the people themselves hardly under¬
stood. To one who was accustomed to looking
upon Mexico as a Roman Catholic country, the
46 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
condition was a revelation, proving conclusively,
as it did, that the papal rule was that of fear.
From the very beginning, in Indian America, the
Romish cult has been an imposition from without,
never the result of spontaneous life from within.
Passing one of the large church buildings, which
I was told afterwards was the cathedral, I saw the
sign in Spanish, “ Commissary for mules and
horses.” My curiosity prompted me to step
within. There, piled up under a mural painting
of the Virgin, was a stack of hay on which mules
were feeding. So thoroughly had Rome identified
herself with the ruling classes, so completely had
she alienated herself from the common people, that
the Mexican revolutionists looked upon the hier¬
archy as their greatest enemy, and treated it
as such.
At the request of Sr. Rojas, himself a pure
Mexican, I addressed the mission congregation on
Sunday. I had noticed the timidity of the people
in general, and their apparent lack of understand¬
ing and full appreciation of the situation, and, let¬
ting my mind go back over my own experiences
since landing in the country, dangers from bullets,
yellow fever, smallpox, railroad accidents, etc., I
could think of no better message to give the little
company than that contained in the ninety-first
Psalm. I pointed them to a living, personal, all-
powerful God who is also a wise and loving
Father, who will allow nothing to befall His chil-
THE LAND OF THE AZTECS
47
dren which is not for their ultimate good, although
we, today, with our limited vision may not be able
to see the reasons for some of the things which He
allows. It was a joy to be able, as representative
of American Christians, to bring them this mes¬
sage from the grand old Book. I have spoken to
many congregations in Mexico and other parts of
Indian America since then, but never had greater
joy in delivering the message.
When the train in which I proceeded to Mexico
City stopped at the station of Maltrata, just before
the long, steep climb by which a feat of modern
engineering takes the traveler up to the tableland,
I looked ahead and saw a crowd of Indian women
running as for life towards the train. It was my
first trip over the road, unusual things had been
happening, and I wondered what this might be.
Was the town being attacked, and were the women
and children fleeing for safety to the train? But,
no, as they approached we could see that every
woman had upon her head, or in her arms, a basket
filled with Mexican delicacies, food, and fruits
which they offered for sale to the passengers
during the delay of the train.
Once up on the tableland, a marked change in
temperature was noticed, and we were glad that
we had been forewarned to put on warm under¬
clothing before starting, and to provide ourselves
with an overcoat.
As we approached Mexico City and thereafter
48 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
in our journeys on the tableland, we were con¬
stantly reminded of what Mr. L. Blanco, the Maya
Indian pastor of Campeche, had referred to as
“ the shame of Mexico.” We passed field after
field of the “ maguey ” plant, which is devoted to
the manufacture of “ pulque,” the national intoxi¬
cating drink, a vile concoction which is peculiarly
debasing and degrading in its effects.
The “ maguey ” is a large cactus with spreading
leaves. When it has reached the right stage of
growth an Indian reaches through the leaves and
cuts out the center of the plant with a machete,
making a hollow or bowl into which the sap oozes.
To gather this juice, a man with a long, hollow
stick, near the end of which has been fastened a
gourd, reaches through the spiny leaves, dips the
end near the gourd into the cavity and, by draw¬
ing in a long breath, sucks the juice up into the
tube from which it falls, carried by gravity, into
the gourd. Later it is allowed to ferment, when
it is ready for use.
My first stay in Mexico City was very short.
While the Mexican leaders were making protests
of concord and amity, there were rumours of dis¬
cord and a coming break. It was noticed through¬
out the country that the troops under the direction
of the partisans of Mr. Carranza were moving
north, those under Ponchito, as Villa was famil¬
iarly called, were moving south. After making
arrangements with Rev. J. P. Hauser to look after
THE LAND OF THE AZTECS
49
the interests of the Bible Society temporarily, it
seemed wise for me to return to New York by way
of Laredo, Texas, before the storm should burst
and railway communications be severed.
I pushed my way through another surging,
jostling crowd at the entrance of the railway sta¬
tion in Mexico City to the ticket window and
through the gate. Here my hand baggage was
thoroughly examined and an official, placing his
hands under my arm, passed them down my sides
and around my hips, saying:
“ Pardon me, but I must search you for arms.”
I submitted smilingly and tried to be sociable.
As I passed on, having offered no objection to the
searching of my baggage or person, he said:
" Thank you, I wish you a safe journey.”
The train left the city about nine P. M., with no
Pullman or chair car. Even the first class coaches
here were crowded to capacity so that during the
first part of the night I was unable to secure a seat,
but later shared one with two other men. We
continued thus, uncomfortably squeezed together,
throughout all the following day. At nightfall we
reached San Luis Potosi, where many passengers
left the train. I tried to get a little sleep in my
seat during the respite, but was suddenly wakened
by an army officer, who asked various questions,
where I came from, where I was going, what my
business was, etc. After this he went over my
person and through my baggage in search of con-
50
GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
cealed weapons or gold currency which it was Un¬
lawful to take out of the country. Not finding any
arms or contraband and learning my mission to
Mexico, he assumed a friendly manner and wished
me a safe journey.
The remainder of the trip was without incident.
Impressions remain of train loads of Indian sol¬
diers with their women and cooking utensils
packed within, around, and on top of box cars, of
burned railway stations, of trenches where engage¬
ments had been fought, and where the carcasses
of horses still lay drying up in the hot sun, of heat,
dust, and thirst suffered in company with fellow-
Mexican travelers who unfailingly responded to
any attempt at comradeship.
I arrived at Laredo, Texas, completely ex¬
hausted, on what proved to be the last through
train for some time from Mexico City across the
Rio Grande. My personal associations during the
years that followed have made me feel sure that if
we would only make the effort to know our south¬
ern neighbours better, the response would be im¬
mediate, and such an international friendship
would result as would go far toward insuring
world-peace, and result in untold material and
moral benefit to all concerned.
IV
MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED
I ACQUIRED on my first visit a very favour¬
able impression of the Mexican character, an
impression which has been intensified with
the years. During my travels in and through the
land of our southern neighbours, I heard of many
cruel and unjustifiable acts, but when I think of
what was going on in Europe at the same time I
do not feel like throwing stones at Mexico. We
must remember that probably not two percent of
the population was responsible for the turmoil, or
took any active part in it. The great mass of the
population is industrious and peace-loving. The
common people desire nothing more ardently than
a little land to cultivate and the right to earn, un¬
disturbed, their own living. It is hard to under¬
stand a common misconception of the Mexican
character.
“ But aren’t they a treacherous lot? ” I am fre¬
quently asked. I felt as safe from harm from my
fellows in Yucatan, Campeche, Vera Cruz, Ori¬
zaba, and even Mexico City as on the streets of
New York and London. There never was a people
more friendly disposed, more considerate, more
51
52 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
willing to go out of their way to do one a favour
than the Mexican whom, unfortunately, we have
identified with a few bandit outlaws. This con¬
ception reminds me of the Swiss peasant woman
who once said to me :
“ America must be a terrible country, for when¬
ever any one commits a crime here he tries to get
to America. You must have nothing but criminals
over there.”
I spent the Easter Holiday season of 1916 in the
town of Muna, Yucatan. The streets were filled
with men, women, and children, clothed in im¬
maculate white, celebrating what is to them the
greatest feast of the year with music, dancing, and
the farcical trial and execution of the king of the
carnival. There was absolutely no disorder or
drunkenness, no pocket-picking nor petty thiev¬
ing. There were hundreds of people crowding the
street and plaza. The attitude of the crowd was
more like that of a Sunday School picnic or some
other religious gathering in the States than the
celebration of a carnival. There was no rudeness,
no loud talking, no rough jostling. Young women
moved about, singly and together, through the
crowd. I did not see one rude stare or glance nor
hear a single improper remark of the kind so com¬
mon among the young men in many Spanish¬
speaking countries. There seemed to be an innate
refinement about the people such as I had not seen
among the same class elsewhere. The very sug-
MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED
53
gestion of fear for one's personal safety among
such a people provokes a smile.
On March the 9th, 1916, after spending the
preceding night in the town of Ticul, Yucatan, I
was on my way to the station to take the train for
Merida. I was walking alone, carrying my hand¬
bag and not paying particular attention to the route
I was taking. I took the street along which there
seemed to be the most traffic, supposing it to be
the one leading to the depot. There were several
school children walking in the same direction.
After I had passed the corner where I should have
turned, a little girl of seven or eight walked along
by my side and asked very modestly where I
wanted to go.
“ To the station," I replied.
“ The other street leads to the station," said she.
The act was so unusual and so nicely done that it
impressed itself on my mind at the time, but I
have since found this attitude of kindliness to be
characteristic of the people.
Another question that is frequently asked is,
“But are they not very fanatical Romanists?"
This also is a misconception. I have already told
of the use of the Cathedral in Orizaba as a com¬
missary for mules and horses. In Yucatan, after
the triumph of the revolutionists, one church was
given to the Masons on condition that they re¬
model the front so that it would not look like a
church. The church at Progreso was put to use
54 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
as a storehouse for the confiscated liquors of the
port. In other places churches were given to
various organizations, the one opposite my
hotel in Merida was assigned to the Students’
League of Yucatan, and one in Muna to a labour
organisation.
The labour organisation held its meeting the day
I was in Muna. Taking advantage of the fact
that the building wras open, I went in and saw in
the two small rooms back of the altar a quantity
of paraphernalia of Romish worship, some vest¬
ments, a large image of the Virgin, a wooden
Christ on the cross, other images, a box full of
documents, etc., etc., all heaped in the greatest dis¬
order. So heavy had been the hand of Rom& and
so little respect had the priests inspired, that as
soon as the people realised that the hierarchy was
in disfavour with the government, they lost no
opportunity to show their enmity by sacking
the churches and destroying the so-called sacred
objects.
Many years ago an Indian came to the Bishop
of Yucatan and told him that he had seen a light
in a certain cedar tree. The bishop laughed and
told the Indian he must be mistaken. The Indian
returned the next night with the same story and
was so earnest and insistent that the bishop him¬
self went to see. Sure enough, there was a light
in the tree. The bishop had the tree cut down and
the wood brought to his house. Shortly after, a
MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED
55
stranger called, asking for work, saying that he
was a carpenter. The carpenter was shut up in a
room with the wood of the tree for the night.
When the door was opened the following day, both
the tree and the strange carpenter had disappeared.
In their stead was an image of the Christ miracu¬
lously suspended in the air.
The image was installed with due ceremony in
the church and became an object of adoration to
which pilgrimages were made from the country
around. In the process of time the church was
burned; and, while all the other images and ob¬
jects of worship were destroyed, the only harm
that occurred to this miraculously-formed image
was a few blisters raised on the surface by the
heat of the fire. The object of such a miracle
surely deserved a place in the cathedral in Merida,
whither it was carried to be worshipped hereafter
under the name of the “ Christ of the Blisters.”
Hearing that the clergy were about to attempt
to form another procession in honour of this
image, the working class of Merida gathered in
front of the cathedral where they were addressed
by a leader who, after reminding them of the cen¬
turies during which they had been hoodwinked and
deceived by Rome, said, referring to an act of the
inquisition in Yucatan during colonial days:
“If Monk Diego Deland celebrated an auto-
da-fe in Mani with idols and monuments of the
Indian, I, D. R - , request that an auto-da-fe be
56 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
now celebrated in the Plaza of Merida with the
black idol of the blisters. Enough of words! To
the work ! ! ”
The crowd started for the cathedral, entered,
and stripped it. Piling the images on the floor,
they set fire to them within the building itself in
order not to attract the attention of the authorities.
The miraculous image was placed on one of the
fires. Lo and behold, though it became sooty with
the smoke, it would not burn! An arm was
broken off and it was seen to be a plaster cast ! !
At the time of my visit, all children were un¬
baptised, all marriages were before the civil magis¬
trate, the dead were buried without any religious
ceremony. Yet so oppressive had been the rule of
the clergy that the general feeling of the common
people was one of relief. These things certainly
do not indicate that the Indians of Mexico are
fanatical Roman Catholics, in fact the contrary i9
the case, not only in Mexico, but throughout
Indian America.
The fanatical Romanists are the Roman land-
owners and the clergy, who do not want anything
to come into the country that will make for the
uplift of the Indian or that will in any way help to
liberate him from their toils. Priests blessed the
arms and acts of Cortez. A priest was the partner
of Pizarro in the iniquitous plans to steal the gold
of the Incas and murder its owners. The treacher¬
ous capture of the Inca King and his base murder
MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED
57
later, had the blessing of the church. The church
received its share of land and Indians and has con¬
tinued to exploit the latter ever since. It has, also,
from the beginning, with a few honourable excep¬
tions, taken the side of the powerful against the
weak. In four hundred years of contact, Rome has
done absolutely nothing to elevate the Indian, but
has preached to him constantly that the way to
serve God was to remain in subjection to the land-
owners and pay money to the priests for masses,
prayers, baptisms, burials, etc., etc. In Yucatan,
the landlords were in the habit of setting apart
one room in their spacious residences as a chapel
where the priests, aided by the command of the
proprietor, could gather the Indians together and
exhort them to be faithful. These successors of
the conquerors are the fanatics who were inter¬
ested in keeping the Bible out of Mexico and are
still interested in keeping it out of other parts of
Indigenous America. When Mexico had expelled
the foreign priests from the country and when the
landed proprietors went into hiding or exile,
fanaticism disappeared. Fanaticism is not among
the faults of the Mexican Indian nor, according to
my experience, of any of the aborigines of the
Western continent. It will be found that, in
almost every case where apparent acts of fanati¬
cism are committed, the priests, backed by the land-
owners who do not want the Indian instructed, are
the cause. I have found this to be true in every
88 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
case that has come to my attention. Whatever
else the Indian may be or may not be, he is not
fanatical.
The Indian does, however, throw up between
himself and the white man a wall of reserve which
it is at times difficult to penetrate. He has very
good reasons for his reserve and suspicion. Has
he not been deceived, cheated, robbed, and un¬
mercifully ill-treated and beaten by the representa¬
tives of Christianity, until he can no longer say
that his lands, his animals, his wife or children, or
even his soul, are his own, if a white man chooses
to covet any one of them? No wonder the
preaching of the Gospel has little or no effect.
The Indian has learned to set little store by the
words of the white man. Acts of love and kind¬
ness, however, he can understand, the love of
Christ interpreted into deeds rather than words.
Disinterested care for his suffering body, work
for the welfare and education of his children, and
even an interest in his poor and meager crops, a
suggestion as to how he can get more out of
the soil, or improve the wool-bearing quality of
his scrub sheep: all of these things indicate an
unselfish interest, and are a help toward break¬
ing down the almost impenetrable barrier of
reserve in which he has been driven to enclose
himself. In his battle for life the Indian, of
all the region from the Mexican border to
Chile, is absolutely without the aid of modern
MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED
59
scientific medicine. No other one thing so
breaks down his prejudices as does sympathy
and help for his suffering body in the mission of
healing.
In these times of uncertainty, disorganisation,
and unrest, the whole world is looking and hoping
for better things. This feeling of unrest and de¬
sire to improve their condition has reached the
Indians also. In Mexico, I found the Protestant
services well attended everywhere. From El Paso
to Laredo along the Mexican border and in all the
intervening towns between these two places and
Mexico City as well as in Vera Cruz, Tampico,
and Yucatan, full congregations listened, and still
listen, to the Gospel. This hopefulness for better
things, this desire to find some solution for the
settlement of their economic, social, and spiritual
problems, does not end with Mexico. It is present
from El Paso to Cape Horn, more intensified in
some places than in others, but still manifest to a
greater or less degree wherever the Indian is to
be found.
There seems to be a pretty general feeling in
these countries that in education lies the remedy
for all their ills. There is a greatly increased de¬
sire to learn to read. Parents everywhere wish
their children to have an education. Not only is
there need for us to help with primary schools, but
we must help them with a supply of all kinds of
helpful, uplifting, inspirational literature in the
60 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
Spanish language. At present there is very little
uplifting literature available. Much of that in
circulation is of a most debasing character. That
good literature will be received is evidenced by the
fact that tens of thousands of Gospels are being
disposed of every year by sale, by the American
Bible Society, yet the funds available for this work
do not enable it to satisfactorily cover one-third of
the territory. Ten thousand Bibles and portions
of the Bible were sold in the city of Monterrey,
Mexico, in 191 6, —one book to every eight per¬
sons, — and in Mexico City the same year 50,000
books were sold in a house to house canvass. Not
only in the cities but throughout the country there
is a ready disposition to buy books, not so much
because they are Bibles, but because they are
reading matter.
In Mexico are to be found many very gratifying
results of the work of Bible distribution as a
pioneer missionary service. Rev. Garza Mora, a
Southern Presbyterian minister of the Monterrey
district, was converted through the reading of a
Bible given his mother by a captain of the Ameri¬
can army during the war with Mexico. Some
United States army officers of the expedition to
Mexico called at his mother’s plantation for food.
She did not understand English, nor they Spanish ;
but they were able to make her understand by signs
what they wanted. She ordered prepared for them
eggs and tortillas for which they offered to pay.
MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED
61
She would accept no money. One of the officers
then went to his saddle-bags, took out and gave
her a Spanish Bible. When the officers had de¬
parted she began to read the Bible and became in¬
tensely interested. She decided that this book was
the Word of God, and that she would follow its
teachings.
Learning that it was wrong to worship idols she
took down all of the many pictures and images of
the saints, etc., that she had in the home, dug a
hole in the ground and buried them in order to
put them out of the way so that no one else would
be tempted to worship them. Her mother, grand¬
mother of Mr. Mora, becoming alarmed at the
way the book was affecting her daughter’s mind,
secretly obtained possession of it, took it to a
priest, and together they burned it, in order to
break the spell it had wToven about the daughter.
The mother of Mr. Mora, however, had learned
that the officer had located in Brownsville, Texas.
She went to him and told him of her loss. He
secured another Spanish Bible for her from New
York. Mr. Mora was quite young at the time.
His mother began to read Bible stories to him,
and she read them over and over to all the children.
As a result, when missionaries finally came to that
section, that Bible had prepared the way, and it
became the means of the conversion of several who
afterwards became members of the church. I am
told that that particular Bible is now in the museum
62 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
of the Presbyterian Mission Board room in New
York City.
When in Yucatan, I became acquainted with
three very earnest mission workers, Don Liborio
Blanco and his two brothers, one pastor of the
Presbyterian church in Merida, the other a candi¬
date for the ministry. Don Liborio told me the
story of his conversion, while I was resting in
Muna after a trip to the prehistoric ruins of
Uxmal. A colporteur of the American Bible So¬
ciety had visited the school where he was learning
to read. This man was interested in the Indian
children and offered a Testament to the best
reader in the beginners’ class of Indian boys.
Little Liborio secured the prize, which he took
home to his mother.
The mother, not sure whether or not the boy
ought to read the book, asked advice of the local
priest. He told her it should be destroyed. In¬
stead of destroying the book, the boy hid it under
the rafters of the house. He had almost forgotten
about it, when, some years later, working as an
apprentice in a shoe factory, he made the acquaint¬
ance of a converted fellow-worker. Noting how
very different was the life of this professing
Christian from that of the other workers in the
shop, he asked him questions about his religion.
The fellow-workman told him that he could learn
all about the true religion in the New Testament.
Going home, young Liborio looked up the for-
MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED
63
gotten book and began to read it. At first he could
understand very little of what he read. The book
was printed in Spanish, his own language was the
Maya. While he had been to school a little, he did
not know Spanish very well. Everything seemed
dark to him, yet there came glimpses of light that
made him wish to understand the book better.
Ignorant boy though he was, he laid the book
before the Lord and prayed.
“ Lord, Thou knowest my ignorance. Some
people tell me this is a bad book, others say that
it is good. I do not know. If it is a bad book, I
do not want to understand it, but if it is a good
book, grant that I may understand it better and
better.”
His prayer was answered and, as the result of
the reading of that Testament, he and other mem¬
bers of the family were converted. Three of them,
at least, have come to consecrate their lives to the
extension of the Kingdom of God in the hearts of
their fellow-countrymen.
In the early sixties, Mr. T. M. Westrup took a
trip through the state of Durango, Mexico, preach¬
ing in the centers of population and distributing
Bibles everywhere. He left a Bible with an old
herdsman, who treasured it as long as he lived, and
when dying, left it to his daughter, requesting her
to read it, care for it, and follow its teachings.
The daughter married, and she, her husband, and
children, considered the Book their most precious
64 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
treasure. It alone guided them to Christ. The
family were baptised by the Rev. Frank Marrs,
and became the nucleus of a Baptist church which
has produced several pastors, among them the Rev.
Francisco Soria, pastor of the Baptist church of
Durango City, who walked seventy miles to be
baptised by the Rev. J. H. Benson.
The instances recorded in this chapter are surely
sufficient to prove that not only is the Mexican
kindly disposed and not fanatical, but that he is
accessible and responsive to evangelistic effort.
The Indian races to the south of us present a fruit¬
ful field for Christian endeavour, an undeveloped
source of spiritual wealth, vast mines of diamonds
in the rough to be gathered for the Master’s
crown, an almost virgin field for spiritual con¬
quest that challenges the metal of modern Chris¬
tian Knighthood.
V
IN AND AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
WHEN living in Mexico City, it became
necessary for us to employ a woman as
servant in the house, as well as a man to
cultivate the large garden and to have general
oversight of the grounds. A boy and girl, brother
and sister, from Xochitenco, a village located on
the side of Lake Texcoco opposite Mexico City,
were recommended by a friend to come to us.
The girl had never been in the city before, and
knew absolutely nothing of civilised housekeeping.
She sat on the floor to clean the vegetables and
threw the peelings dowm in front of her instead
of putting them into the pan or sink. Mrs.
Jordan was beginning to wonder if she could pos¬
sibly undertake the training of one so ignorant,
when, at the close of the first day, the girl and her
brother came to the conclusion that Mexico City
was too “ sad and lonesome ” for them and they
must return to their village home. Mrs. Jordan
dreaded taking another ignorant country girl on
trial. It became imperative, however, for her to
hire someone. I also needed a man to work the
wartime garden, hence w^e decided to try again.
65
66 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
The same friend who had sent the first couple
sent us another brother and sister.
Aurelia and Maicimino Garcia were Indian in
feature and dress, retiring and taciturn, their ap¬
pearance was not at all prepossessing. I found
my task with the boy quite simple. He enjoyed
cultivating the soil, was much pleased with the
American tools; and I let him have pretty nearly
his own way with the garden. He was anxious to
learn all about the new plants we were trying to
introduce and, from time to time, asked for seeds
and plants to take back to his own village for his
father to grow on their little farm.
Mrs. Jordan’s task with the girl, however, was
quite different. Aurelia was absolutely ignorant
of each and every duty she was called upon to
perform. Many times during the first few weeks
Mrs. Jordan would say:
“ I do not know what to make of the girl. She
does not talk ; she seems willing and I think she is
trying to please, but I cannot tell whether she is
pleased or not, or what she is thinking about, and
she is, Oh ! so slow ! ”
After the first week, the mother came bringing
the children changes of clothing. At the same
time, she brought a basket of native fruits for us.
She was a tall, thin, serious, and purposeful-
looking woman. She remained for the night with
her children. Before leaving the next morning,
she said to us that she hoped we were pleased with
AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
67
the children for they were happy and wanted to
stay with us. Thus began a long and most pleas¬
ant relationship. One of the parents would come
every second week bringing a change of clothing
for the children and taking back the soiled clothes
for mending and washing. On these visits they
never omitted bringing us a basket of country
products. At one time it would be figs, at another
zapotes — the sweet fruit of the tree from the sap
of which the chicle for the chewing gum of com¬
merce is extracted. Sometimes they would bring
butter and milk or a brace of wild fowl. Mrs.
Jordan did not allow the parents to return empty-
handed, but would always put something in the
basket to be taken back home by them, generally
a cake or a loaf of bread, of which the mother was
specially proud after Aurelia had learned to bake.
I think, however, if the food value of the things
given were taken into account, we would unques¬
tionably remain in their debt.
Once, in honour of the birthday of Aurelia,
the mother and another sister came bringing with
them a large turkey, together with all the articles
necessary for preparing it in true Mexican style,
and asked the privilege of preparing it for us. As
a special treat they prepared the turkey with a
sauce, called “ mole ” very highly seasoned with
red pepper and other condiments. I did not realise
how strongly peppered the dish was and served
the children quite liberally with the attractive-
68 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
looking sauce. Our youngest, David Carey, was
the first to taste it. Taking a mouthful, he was
surprised, shocked, and terrified at the painful
effect of the delicate morsel he had been so long
anticipating and raised a howl that was heard all
over the house. The sound reached the kitchen
where the mother and sister were. We were em¬
barrassed, since we wished them to feel that we
appreciated their efforts to give us pleasure. We
were glad to see, however, that their keen sense of
humour led them to appreciate the situation. They
burst out laughing, and will long remember and
laugh over the incident. The rest of the family
were more careful, and we really did enjoy the
turkey. We prized most of all, however, the spirit
that had prompted its preparation, showing, as it
did, that we had a place in the hearts of those with
whom we were having our most intimate dealings,
and whom we were learning to love and appreciate.
The Garcias were insistent in pressing us to
come with our children and spend a day in their
home where they entertained us more than once
with hearty hospitality. The mother with the
assistance of another daughter prepared Mexican
delicacies for the table and did not conceal her
delight to find that we enjoyed them. The father
laid aside his ordinary occupations in order to
show us what to them were commonplace enough,
but to us, the wonders of the Lake.
Neither mother nor father could read. Thejr
AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
69
had wished their children might learn to do so, but
had come to think they were too old to begin to
learn. We secured some Spanish first readers and,
after the supper dishes were washed, Aurelia and
Maicimino would come to the living room for their
daily reading lesson. They learned rapidly and, as
soon as they found they could begin to spell out
and understand the signs over the places of busi¬
ness in the city, were delighted and spurred on to
greater effort. After finishing the primers, the
Spanish Bible became our text-book. Finally,
with the formality of a full month’s notice, this
Mexican brother and sister left our home; he to
assist his father on the little farm, she to relieve
her aged mother in the household duties. Honest
and faithful, responsive and affectionate, our inti¬
mate relations with this humble Mexican family
proved them to be. Our associations with them
helped to brighten our stay in Mexico City at a time
when living conditions left much to be desired.
Mexico City was suffering at this time from a
scourge of organised thieves and housebreakers.
Nothing movable was safe from their depreda¬
tions. Clothing, laundry, utensils, door knobs,
bells, and electric light fixtures, would disappear
mysteriously while one’s back was turned. Al¬
most while one was looking, automobile parts such
as hub and radiator caps, spark coils, lamps and
headlights, would disappear from a standing
machine.
70 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
Three well-dressed young men entered the Bible
Depository early one morning as Miss Febe
Becerra, who was alone in charge of the office, was
using the telephone. Two of the men coming near
tried to engage her in conversation and confuse
her. On hanging up the receiver, she noticed that
the typewriter, at which she had just been working,
had disappeared. Stepping quickly to the door
ahead of the men, she held them while calling for
help, and succeeded in delivering both to the police,
though one a Bernards escaped. Several type¬
writers were lost in the city that week, but this
was the only case in which an arrest was made.
Both Miss Becerra and I, as her employer and
owner of the machine, were obliged to appear in
court. The authorities kept calling upon her to
appear. Finally it became necessary for her to go
to the penitentiary to identify the prisoner. Re¬
tiring, as Mexican ladies are known to be, one
could but admire her courage and pluck, her pres¬
ence of mind, and her willingness to see the thing
through. Police courts in Mexico are so slow, and
any case involves so much loss of time and so
many petty annoyances that many prefer to allow
a thief to escape rather than run the risk of being
involved in a court affair.
No body of water is more intimately connected
with the life of a people or is more closely inter¬
woven with its legends and history than is Lake
Texcoco with that of the once powerful Aztecs.
AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
71
Suggestive also of the fate of that ill-starred na¬
tion is the reduction of the once proud inland sea
to little more than a mud flat barely covered with
water during the dry season, a little deeper and
more extended during the rains, but never more
than a faint indication of its former national im¬
portance. Teeming with insect, bird, reptile, and
amphibian life as do few spots on the surface of
our planet, the lake is the wonder of the casual
visitor, a garden of discovery and delight for the
naturalist, and a wing-shot’s paradise. More im¬
portant than these, however, is the never-ending
human interest centering in the lives of the simple
villagers who cultivate its shores, pasture their
cattle among its reeds, extract a living from its
fertile mud by the sale of the catch of insects, fish,
bird, and amphibian, or of the saltpeter left by the
evaporation of its liquid content. Typical of the
constant struggle for life going on in and above
its waters is the Mexican national emblem of an
eagle in the act of destroying a serpent.
Lake Texcoco is a large body of very shallow
water, the remains of what was formerly an inland
sea that covered the floor of the valley, and in the
midst of which the city of Mexico was first built.
At the time of the Spanish conquest the city was
surrounded by water and connected with the main¬
land by a long causeway. Cortez built ships on
the shore of the lake at the town of Texcoco when
he laid siege to the city. Many of its streets were
72
GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
formed by canals as are those of modern Venice.
The water has been gradually drying up, however,
aided in the process by a triumph of modern sani¬
tary engineering in the form of the sewage canal
and tunnel through the mountains that form the
rim of the bowl-shaped valley which formerly had
no outlet.
While never entirely dry, at times sections of
the bottom of the lake become so dry that the mud
is worked up into fine dust which is frequently
elevated by whirlwinds and precipitated upon
Mexico City in heavy, disagreeable dust storms.
During the rains, this lake-bottom is covered with
water ranging in depth anywhere from a few
inches to two or three feet. It is traversed by
narrow ditch-like canals to admit the passage of
long, narrow boats. On a still day, I have seen a
man, sitting in a boat in the middle of a stretch of
water a mile wide and apparently deep, jump out
and run to secure a duck he had shot. The water
was so shallow that from the distance it gave the
appearance of the miracle of a man running on the
surface of a large body of water.
It was the friendship of the family of our
Mexican servants that led to an intimate acquaint¬
ance with this fascinating natural vivarium. To
reach their home in Xochitenco we crossed the
lake on a flat car drawn by mules over a delapi-
dated railroad built on a low embankment thrown
up across the shallow waters.
AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
73
Sr. Garcia’s little plot of land reached to the
edge of the lake, and a ditch brought his long,
narrow boat close to the house. At this point the
lake is overgrown with reeds, but channels are kept
open for navigation by the light, flat-bottomed
boats. We were taken for a ride in one of these
boats which was filled with grass so that we might
recline in comfort while our swarthy hosts, father
and son, propelled us around among the reeds and
out into the open water. The Garcias were very
solicitous that Mrs. Jordan should enjoy the day,
and as we made our way through the channels
among the bright green rushes, reclining over the
water, shaded by umbrellas from the tropic sun,
with every wish anticipated by our delighted hosts,
it was not hard to imagine the pomp and luxury
of the Montezumas as they traveled in royal
splendour the waterways of the empire before the
arrival of Cortez and his followers.
Innumerable snipe-like birds were feeding in the
mud. Some of these were shot for us with an old
muzzle-loading gun such as I had used when a
boy. Numerous water snakes would glide from
the reeds into the water and swim away at our
approach. The water, the mud, and the grass,
were teeming with many kinds of aquatic and
semi-aquatic life. The tall reeds were fairly alive
with small frogs that, having crawled up out of
the water, were sunning themselves on the glisten¬
ing stalks and leaves. Insects scurried to their
74
GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
hiding places in the mud. Schools of small,
minnow-like fish fairly crowded themselves out
of the water in places, and elsewhere the shallow
bottom was black with wriggling tadpoles.
As we had come along the railroad from
Mexico City across the mud flats of the lake, we
had noticed the sides of the embankment black
with a small fly that had congregated in such
swarms that the noise as they flew up, frightened
by the trotting mules, was similar to that caused
by the wind among dry leaves. An interesting
feature in the history of this fly scientifically
known as “ ephydra Mans ” is its use from time
immemorial as an article of human consumption.
Handfuls of long reeds are tied together at the
tips and laid in parallel rows about a foot apart
upon the ground at the water’s edge. In a short
time these wisps of reeds are covered with flies
and after a day or two are gathered, white with
the deposited eggs. They are then spread out in
the hot sun. After drying, the eggs are shaken
and rubbed off onto a large cloth spread upon the
ground. When needed for food, they are ground
and prepared as a sort of porridge or gruel of
which the inhabitants in the bordering villages
are very fond.
The mud of the lake bottom teems with count¬
less millions of the larvae of this fly, and portions
of the surface are covered at times with its float¬
ing pupae. These drift ashore in little windrows
AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
75
and are swept up by the natives. The choicest of
the pupae are made into paste to be eaten with
tortillas. Others are dried, cleaned of the foreign
matter that has drifted ashore with them, and sold
for bird food. Before the great war they were
regularly shipped to Europe and sold to bird
fanciers. The residue is used as fertilizer by the
gardeners around the capital. The mature flies are
caught at night in large numbers in cheese cloth
nets and sold in the markets for chicken feed.
One of the most impressive lessons of Lake
Texcoco is to be found in the wonderful provision
of Providence, by this super-abundance of animal
life in its waters and muddy bottom, for the sus¬
tenance throughout the winter of the vast numbers
of water fowl that darken its waters from Septem¬
ber to March. While there is a great variety of
other birds, swimmers as well as great flocks of
waders, the various species of the migratory duck
predominate. During the season from the last of
September to the first of March, this lake is fre¬
quented by hundreds of thousands of ducks that
come to spend the winter here where nature
has provided such abundance of food for their
nourishment.
These are the very same ducks that the United
States and Canada protect in the spring on their
return to their breeding places in the north.
Again on their way back in autumn to their winter
quarters on Lake Texcoco they are hedged about
76 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
with shooting regulations. Here in Mexico the
birds are absolutely unprotected and subjected to
the most destructive kind of wholesale slaughter.
Individuals acquire the rights to sections of the
lake. Through these places no one is allowed to
pass, and at a point within easy shotgun range a
hundred or more old fowling pieces are trained on
the water. About as many more are pointed a few
feet above the surface. The ducks, learning that
they can feed undisturbed in these spots, congre¬
gate here in great numbers. At a pre-arranged
hour, usuallv between ten and eleven in the morn-
ing, a volley is fired by a contrivance attached to
the guns, first at the ducks resting on the water,
then another volley as they rise. The slaughter is
enormous. Wounded ducks fly in all directions.
Men, women and boys from Mexico City, having
gathered in anticipation of the “ armada” as they
call it, run to secure the wounded ducks that fall
outside the property of those controlling this sec¬
tion of the water. The slayers gather up the dead
and wounded as quickly as possible in boat-loads,
and, charging the guns again, retire from sight.
Strange as it may seem, the frightened birds
soon begin to congregate again in the same place.
Volleys of shot fired at them in this way, from
time to time, frighten the birds less than the con¬
tinued passing of sportsmen with guns. On most
of the grounds this wholesale shooting occurs
about twice a week from October to February.
AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
77
Other game birds are also subjected to this manner
of slaughter, but not to the same extent as ducks.
After such an “ armada ” ducks are frequently sold
in Mexico City for twenty-five cents each.
This brings us to another lesson to be derived
from the study of Lake Texcoco, namely, the
brotherhood and interdependence of man. The
earth, being made for mankind as a whole, should
not be monopolised by any individual or nation.
These wild ducks should be made a subject of in¬
ternational agreement as to laws for their preser¬
vation. Since the United States and Canada pro¬
tect these birds, could not Mexico be persuaded to
give them some measure of protection, and, at the
same time, take steps to prevent the further drying
up of this wonderful body of water in order that
it may be preserved to continue to produce its
marvelous supply of food for the innumerable
birds that congregate here to pass the winter?
Of intense interest are the archaeological and
ethnological collections to be found in the museum
of Mexico City. They not only merit a passing
visit, but furnish subjects for a lifetime of fasci¬
nating study. The enormous, grotesque, stone
figures of the Aztecs indicate a mythology trying
to find enduring expression. The massive Calen¬
dar Stone, with its undeciphered hieroglyphics,
bears mute testimony to a development of the
science of astronomy that must have been the
result of generations of patient study and observa-
78 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
tion. The different tribes of Indians living in the
various parts of Mexico are here represented by
life-sized wax figures clad in native costumes,
working at their usual occupations in the vicinity
of huts which are the exact replica of those found
in the native villages.
The Natural History Museum occupies crowded
quarters, every available inch of floor space being
taken up with glass cases crowded with specimens.
At the sides, cases are arranged tier upon tier.
Hundreds of stuffed specimens are standing upon
the tops of the side cases and hung from the walls
around the interior. Few places are more favour¬
ably located for such a museum, or are better
centers from which to pursue the study of nature,
than is Mexico City. The altitude is favourable
to the preservation of the specimens, and its loca¬
tion at the center of the railroad system of the
country which has a variety of fauna excelled by
few others adds to its desirability as a center for
scientific observation.
The Biological Department of the museum was
making a study of the vital statistics of the valley
of Mexico during the time of our stay in the city.
They were also trying to secure a complete set of
specimens of the fauna of the valley. I found
Professor Herrera a most charming gentleman.
During our outings in the vicinity of Lake Tex-
coco I succeeded in securing some desired speci¬
mens which I gave to the museum. Thereafter I
AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
79
had a standing invitation from Mr. Herrera, the
chief of the department, to accompany the staff of
the institution on their weekly outings for study,
research and recreation.
One Saturday, we all carried our lunch and
visited the locality of the famous floating gardens
at Xochimilco, where are also the waterworks
from which Mexico City is supplied. The party
consisted of professors of the University, Mr.
Herrera, and the mythologist, entomologist, and
taxidermist of the museum, as well as two or three
others. We passed a most pleasant day and se¬
cured many specimens. Mr. Herrera obtained
much information regarding the most prevalent
diseases among the natives of the district. To my
mind, the outstanding feature of the day was the
fact that the party, consisting mostly of Govern¬
ment employees, went first to military headquar¬
ters to request that soldiers be sent out to protect
us during the day’s outing from attack by the
Indian followers and friends of the rebel Zapata,
a precaution I would have considered unnecessary
had I been alone.
While there was much banditry and highway
robbery, it was safer for a foreigner to travel in
Mexico at that time than for almost any unpro¬
tected member of the Mexican Government. I
once invited a friend who was very prominent in
Mexican politics and a loyal supporter of Mr. Car¬
ranza to go with me on Saturday afternoon on a
80 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
shooting trip across Lake Texcoco. He demurred,
saying that he would very much like to go but that
he was so closely connected with the government
that, should we meet with any of its enemies, he
feared he would receive little mercy at their hands.
This invitation was to visit the vicinity of the
home of our servants, a section to which I had not
the slightest hesitation in taking Mrs. Jordan and
the children and where we were treated by all with
the greatest consideration and courtesy.
I found military men everywhere very kindly
disposed. There was no prejudice against indi¬
vidual Americans. I, as well as other mission¬
aries, circulated freely among Villa’s soldiers in
and around Aguas Calientes just after their first
defeat by the Carranza forces. No restrictions
were placed upon our movements, and soldiers and
officers conversed freely with us. I remember in
particular one petty officer beside whom I sat at
the railroad station. He was very much dejected,
having just lost a brother. Speaking of the way
the revolution had degenerated to a fratricidal
squabble he said :
“ We Mexicans are a bad lot. We cannot agree
together. I will never forgive those scoundrels for
the way in which they killed my brother.”
He was no longer fighting for principles, vin¬
dictiveness furnished the motive.
The officers of Carranza’s forces were equally
friendly and confided to me secrets regarding their
AROUND THE AZTEC CAPITAL
81
movements that were very important in arranging
my itinerary.
Even the terrible Zapata whose Indians, when
in possession of Mexico City, shot down the fire¬
men thinking that the engine with which they were
hastening to quench a fire was some new instru¬
ment of war, gave the colporteur of the American
Bible Society a passport in which he commanded
his own officials to offer him every facility in his
work and kindly requested the enemy to do
the same!
Such are the Mexicans as I have found them in
all walks of life. Always ready to meet one more
than half way in establishing friendships that were
helpful and permanent. They have found a cher¬
ished place in our memories and, on leaving the
country to which we had devoted four years of
happy service, to take up our residence in the Canal
Zone, we felt like repeating from the heart the
formula of the Mexican labourer on leaving the
service of an employer, “ Dispense lo malo.” Lit¬
erally, “Excuse the bad.” Freely translated it
means, “ Forgive all the trouble and worry my
mistakes and imperfect services may have caused
you.”
VI
THE BIBLE HOUSE, CRISTOBAL, C. Z.
THE magnificent three-story reinforced con¬
crete building in the business section of
Cristobal, Canal Zone, announcing to the
world in large blue terra cotta letters that it is the
property of the American Bible Society bears a
bronze tablet setting forth its origin as a centen¬
nial gift from the Maryland Bible Society on the
completion of the first hundred years of the
former. The Bible House was erected here in
order to take advantage of a strategic position
from which to send the printed Word to the ends
of the earth through the multitudinous avenues of
commerce centering in the Canal.
The building is the headquarters for two agen¬
cies of the American Bible Society, the Upper
Andes and the Caribbean, which cover Central
America, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and
Bolivia. Here, also, many missionaries going to
and from their fields in Central and South Amer¬
ica, as well as in other parts of the world, find a
temporary home while waiting to make their boat
connections when it becomes necessary to tranship
in Panama. I do not know, however, that it was
82
THE BIBLE HOUSE, CRISTOBAL, C. Z. 83
ever anticipated that the Bible House at Cristobal
would serve in any large way the indigenous popu¬
lations of Central and South America. This,
nevertheless, it is beginning to do. Within the
last few weeks there has been brought to the Bible
House a manuscript of a grammar and the Gospel
of Matthew in the language of the Yaliente In¬
dians of the Republic of Panama whose speech has
never before been reduced to writing. These
people occupy a portion of the coast, but more
largely the mountains of the interior between
Cristobal and Bocas del Toro, the first seaport to
the west. A lay worker of the English Wesleyan
church without much book learning has been for
years working out the intricacies of this unknown
and unwritten language. The missionary in
charge, the Rev. C. S. Cousins, brought the results
of the labours of this indefatigable worker to the
representative of the Bible Society for suggestion
and help.
In the opposite direction, to the east along the
north shore of the Isthmus toward Colombia, in¬
habiting a group of entrancingly beautiful coral
islands and the adjacent coast, are the San Bias
Indians. Small of stature, of sturdy physique, no
adequate description of them is to be found in our
encyclopedias. Ruled by hereditary chiefs, they
had not until recently acknowledged the supremacy
of the white man. These Indians boast their racial
purity and uncontaminated blood. They are sim-
84 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
pie agriculturalists, fishermen, and hunters, selling
their cocoanuts to the merchants of Colon, who
send small boats along the coast to gather them in.
Sometimes the Indians themselves bring their
products and those of the forest and sea to the
wharves at Colon, paddling with marvelous skill
their dug-out canoes, heaped to the gunwale, over
the choppy sea outside the harbour.
These Indians have peculiar customs. They live
mostly on the low coral islands of the gulf of San
Bias to avoid the snakes, beasts, and insect pests
of the mainland. Their cocoanut farms, however,
are on the nearby coast where the women go to the
streams for fresh water for drinking, cooking, and
washing and the men to work, hunt, and bury their
dead. They are very cleanly in some of their
habits, washing their clothing and bathing fre¬
quently. Both men and women are clever with the
needle. The men make their own garments and
the women make dresses of applique work with
fantastic designs. They are fond of ornaments
and weight themselves down with strings of coins
and beads. They disfigure their limbs by constrict¬
ing them with strings of beads so tightly wound
around that the muscles of the calf do not develop.
Nose rings and great gold disks hanging from
their ears were until recently the fashion. Rum
and gambling are the curses of this picturesque
people who are exploited by traders and conscience¬
less government officials.
INDIAN WOMAN (SAN BLAS) PANAMA. NOTE MEXICAN CHRISTIAN WOMAN CARRYING
GOLD DISKS AND CONSTRICTED ARMS. WATER.
THE BIBLE HOUSE, CRISTOBAL, C. Z. 85
The local Government representative, the chief
of police, is now setting about civilising (?) the
islanders by forbidding the wearing of their pic¬
turesque costumes and prohibiting attendance at
the mission school and sendees. Rounding them
up, he forces them to take part in nightly dances
where Panamanian police teach mixed dancing and
the modern “ trots,” a proceeding which at first
scandalised the hitherto unsophisticated Indians.
Recently the chief of police outdid Pizarro himself
by issuing an order that no Indian woman should
henceforth wear jewelry on pain of imprisonment.
He then proceeded to confiscate quantities of gold
and silver ornaments, giving neither receipt nor
scrap of paper to indicate the value or previous
ownership of the articles.
Mrs. Elizabeth Purdy, who has lived for eight
years in a grass hut on one of the islands and who
is returning to the States broken in health by a
malignant type of malaria, is, at this writing, at
the Bible House on her way to the States with
three Indian young men whom she has been teach¬
ing English, and whom her zeal has inspired with
the ambition to get an education so that they can
return to help their own people. While at the
Bible House, Mrs. Purdy is dictating to the repre¬
sentative of the Bible Society her vocabulary of
Indian words so that whoever follows her may
take advantage of the result of her labours and
begin where she left off.
86 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
South from the San Bias region on the opposite
side of the Isthmus are the still more primitive
Darien Indians, among whom no missionary is
working. From time to time, excursion parties
are formed and a launch chartered by Canal
Zone employees and others to look upon these
Darien Indians in their primitiveness and to
photograph them in their nakedness, but no mes¬
senger of the Cross has as yet gone to live Christ
among them.
These unevangelised Indians, and others as well,
are close at hand, living with us on the same nar¬
row Isthmus that has witnessed one of the greatest
engineering feats of modern times. Farther afield
to the West and Northwest in Central America
and to the South and Southeast in the Andes and
the Amazon valley, are the descendants of the
ancient Cakchiquels and Quiches, the Chibchas,
the Quichuas, and the Aymaras whose civilisations
were destroyed by the Spanish Conquest, but
whose enslaved children are today mutely appeal¬
ing to North America for sympathy and help.
Indian America is at our doors here in Cristo¬
bal; its representatives daily walk the streets of
Panama and Colon as well as other Latin Ameri¬
can cities, ignorant of Spanish, the language of
their rulers, and dumbly desiring — they know not
what. We know: it is Christian sympathy, the
Message of Jesus, the Gospel of the Kingdom.
Thank God for the Bible House and the purpose
I
THE BIBLE HOUSE, CRISTOBAL, C. Z. 87
that erected it that every man might hear in his
own tongue the “ wonderful works of God.”
Rev. R. R. Gregory, Secretary for the Carib¬
bean Agency, has just brought to the Bible House
(1923) on his return from a trip through Gaute-
mala, the manuscript of a part of the Gospel of
John in the Cakchiquel language, translated by
Mr. W. C. Townsend, of the Central America
Mission of Antigua with the help of two Indian
converts. This language, spoken by about 250,000
people is of Mayan stock, the most fully developed
of any of the languages found in the two Amer¬
icas. Monuments, monoliths, and other stones
with still undeciphered Mayan inscriptions are
found today scattered among crumbling and forest-
covered ruins throughout northern Gautemala and
southern Mexico. Mr. Townsend and his helpers
pastor thirty-eight congregations speaking this
language.
Nowhere in all Indian America is more progress
being made towards reaching the Indian with the
Gospel than in Gautemala. Rev. Paul Burgess,
Ph.D., of the Presbyterian Mission at Quezalte-
nango, has had American and European training,
and is devoting himself entirely to work for the
Quiches, of which there are some 300,000, among
whom he has many mission congregations. The
Quiches are also of Mayan stock, and Mr. Burgess
is approaching their language from a scientific
standpoint with a view to giving them the Gospel
83
GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
in their own tongue. Both Mr. Townsend and
Dr. Burgess are looking to the American Bible
Society to publish the results of their Bible trans¬
lation work.
Devoted Moravian missionaries have already
translated the New Testament into the language of
the famous Mosquito Indians inhabiting the east
coast of Nicaragua. The work hitherto attempted
in Central America is, however, but very slight
compared with that remaining to be undertaken.
The activities on behalf of the Indian, helped or
directed from the Bible House, reach away down
to Southern Bolivia. We are at this writing mail¬
ing copies of the whole New Testament in the
Quechua language of that region to missionaries
at work in the Bolivian interior. This particular
production is, as far as I have been able to learn,
the second complete New Testament ever pub¬
lished in any indigenous South American language
or dialect — the first being that of the Guarani of
Paraguay. This translation was made under the
direction of Mr. George Allan, of the Bolivian
Indian Mission. The American Bible Society has
just entered into an arrangement with Mr. C. H.
McKinney, formerly of that Mission, to undertake
the supervision of the circulation of this book.
Mr. McKinney will locate in Da Paz, and we trust
he may be able to undertake also the supervision
of the translation of the Gospels into the language
of the sturdy though degraded Aymaras that in-
THE BIBLE HOUSE, CRISTOBAL, C. Z. 89
habit that city and the surrounding country. If
we except a very defective Gospel of Luke, the
Aymaras have never had any portion of the Bible
in their own tongue.
Some years ago, the American Bible Society
published the Gospels in the dialect of Cuzco, the
cradle of the Quechua language, which is now
spoken in its various dialects from Ecuador to
northern Chile. Another and revised edition is
needed. In the program of evangelisation of
South and Central America, the publishing of
diglot Gospels in the native dialects side by side
with the Spanish, is of prime importance if for
nothing more than to give the workers among the
Indians a vocabulary with which to present the
Gospel. Just as we in North America have found
the publication of Bible portions in English and
the language of the immigrant an aid to the
Americanisation of the foreigner, so the Latin
American countries are going to find the publica¬
tion of these diglot Gospels an aid in the program
of nationalising the Indian. A field for linguistic
acquisition and effort is here presented, rivalled
only by India and Africa.
During a recent visit to Ecuador, the writer
called on Mrs. William Woodward, of Caliata, a
little village in the thickly-populated Indian coun¬
try near Riobamba. Mrs. Woodward has been in
Ecuador for the last nineteen years without having
once returned to the homeland. Without any
90 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
special educational qualification other than a gram¬
mar school knowledge of English, she has devoted
herself to the study of the Indian language, using
the only method by which it is possible to acquire
a language that has no literature, namely associ¬
ation with the people themselves. She spent a
great deal of her time with the shepherd women in
the fields where they were tending their flocks,
showing the curiosity of a child in asking them
the name of everything and having new expres¬
sions repeated again and again for her benefit.
Little by little, she was able to put the Bible stories
into language that the women could understand.
Then she began the translation of incidents and
parables from the Gospels, writing down and pre¬
serving the results of her work. Finally, she had
accomplished sufficient to be able to translate the
whole of the Gospel of Luke. As a result of her
long study and patient effort, workers now going
to the Ouechua Indians of Ecuador will be able to
save years of delay in acquiring the language by
taking advantage of that which Mrs. Woodward
has been at work so faithfully digging out for
them and putting into print with the help of the
American Bible Society.
From the highlands of Ecuador to the east of
Riobamba a very rapid descent is made into the
heavily-forested Amazon valley, and the traveler
finds himself in the land of the Jibaros, formerly
a very numerous and warlike tribe who extermi-
THE BIBLE HOUSE, CRISTOBAL, C. Z. 91
nated the Spaniards who had established prosper¬
ous cities in that region. These people are devil
worshipers. If God is good, they reason, they
have nothing to fear from Him. The devil, how¬
ever, is malignant, therefore he must be propitiated
by worship and sacrifice. The witch doctor is their
chief authority and resource in time of sickness
and need. In case of serious illness, some child or
other helpless person is looked upon as the cause
and tortured, frequently to death, in order that the
sick person may find relief. A strong man or
warrior is never chosen to be made the subject of
these tortures. An able-bodied man is so strong
that he cannot be made the tool of the devil in
producing sickness, but children, women, and old
men may be so used. Women do the heavy work
of tilling the ground, carrying burdens, etc. A
man may have several wives, and it is customary
to kill the old and useless ones.
War is the normal state of the Jibaro Indian,
first for the purpose of securing wives from neigh¬
bouring or enemy tribes, second for revenge of
injuries inflicted upon relatives during these wars,
then for enemy heads that are supposed to bring
good luck to the possessors because of the sacrifice
of the victim to the devil. The heads of their
enemies also become a source of income to these
savage Amazonian tribes, since they are exchanged
with traders for arms, ammunition, etc.
The skull is removed from the head of the de-
92 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
capitated enemy through a slit in the back from
the neck up. The skin is then boiled to arrest
putrefaction, after which it is dried and reduced
in size by inserting hot stones the size of an
orange. When the interior has been shrunk to the
size of the stones hot sand is used to continue the
process of drying and shrinking. After the pro¬
cess is completed, the head is hung up in the hut as
a trophy and feasts are held in its honour. These
miniature heads, retaining to a remarkable degree
characteristic likeness to the living person, are un¬
fortunately in demand in the civilised (?) world.
Merchants in Lima, Peru, and even in Panama,
have these gruesome objects mounted in glass cases
upon their counters as a side attraction to their
places of business.
During the last two centuries the Jibaros have
greatly decreased in numbers. Their attitude
toward the whites has become more friendly and
they respond readily to kindly approach. The only
missionaries working among them, however, are
those of the Gospel Missionary Union. These
lone missionaries, also, when on their way to their
distant stations take advantage of the hospitality
offered by the Bible House in Cristobal. Without
much book-learning or the preparation usually re¬
quired by other Mission Boards for those whom
they send out, these missionaries are nevertheless
representing Jesus Christ in the midst of these un¬
tutored savages and, by their acts of kindness in-
THE BIBLE HOUSE, CRISTOBAL, C. Z. 9 %
terpreting to them the nature of God’s love. Is it
too much to hope that even these Jibaros may some
day enjoy the benefits already conferred upon so
many nations and tribes by Bible Society activity?
Long-neglected Ecuador is at last receiving some
attention from North American missionary forces.
The Christian and Missionary Alliance has as¬
sumed responsibility for the evangelisation of the
field. In increasing numbers, new missionaries of
this Board are calling at the Bible House. The
Indian problem is being laid upon the hearts of
some. Work among them has already been
opened in the most northerly Quechua-speaking
district in Otavalo, north of Quito. We trust that
before long we may have the privilege of giving
practical aid to a real earnest effort to give the
thickly-inhabited villages of this most northerly
Quechua-speaking country the printed Word in
their own tongue side by side with the Spanish,
which they must learn if they are to assume places
of equality with their more favoured fellow-
citizens. The effort at evangelisation thereby be¬
comes also a help to the general uplift of the
Indian and to his absorption into the national life
to which he has more to contribute than many real¬
ise. The Bible Society may thus help to make this
contribution Christian.
The effort to reach the numerous tribes occupy¬
ing the vast extent of territory drained by the
headwaters of the Amazon in Ecuador, Peru, and
94 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
Bolivia, must be made from the west, since access
to this region from the high and healthy altitudes
of the Andes is much less expensive, more direct,
and accompanied by fewer dangers than the long
and tedious journey up the Amazon. At any time,
the representatives of these tropical forest Indians
may be found in the mountain cities of these South
American countries where they come shivering in
their insufficient clothing to trade herbs, bird skins
and other trophies of the tropical jungles for the
more substantial food of the mountaineer and the
cloth and trinkets of civilisation. Panama is
therefore a logical center from which to extend
help to the missionaries working in Central and
South America in the attempts to put the Word of
God into the primitive Indian languages and dia¬
lects. It has been our inestimable privilege to come
in contact with many of the consecrated workers
throughout the countries described in these pages,
to visit some of them in their fields of labour, and
to discuss with them the problems connected with
the evangelisation of their respective districts. It
was from Panama that Pizarro and his compan¬
ions sailed on their voyages of discovery and con¬
quest of the Inca Empire. It is from the Bible
House at Cristobal on the Isthmus of Panama that
soldiers of the Cross set forth four centuries later
to continue their voyages of discovery and con¬
quest of the spiritual darkness of these same
regions.
VII
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
OUR ship is due to leave the dock at Cris¬
tobal on the Atlantic end of the Canal at
six in the morning. We take our baggage
on board the evening before and spend the night
at the Bible House.
Arising early, we walk to the wharf and up the
deserted gangway about half an hour before sail¬
ing time. This is the most pleasant time of the
day in the tropics. It is growing daylight, and we
go to the upper deck to watch the activities con¬
nected with the sailing of the ship and to note the
phenomena of dawn. All is quiet until a few min¬
utes before six. Then the pilot is seen coming
down to the wharf in an auto and, with that
business-like American step which it is so refresh¬
ing to see in these lands where everyone saunters,
comes up the gangway and takes his place on the
bridge. Promptly at four bells, six o’clock, the
windlasses begin to turn to wind the ship’s cables.
The coloured West Indian crew which is to remain
on board until the ship has made the transit, comes
over the gangway. This is then drawn up; tugs
set their machinery in motion and take their places
95
96 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
at the side of the ship; negroes take positions at
the hawser posts on the pier; the stewards start
cleaning; and we realize that the activities of the
day are under way.
The aft hawser is cast off first, the ship swings
clear, the propeller revolves, and we begin to re¬
verse, the ship, going out under her own steam, is
soon under way. Our attention is now directed
to the east where low-lying, silver-edged clouds an¬
nounce that the sun is already rising. There is a
stiff breeze blowing from the Atlantic. Beyond
the breakwater we can see a United Fruit boat ap¬
proaching from Costa Rica, while smoke and a dim
outline on the horizon indicate another steamer
making this comparatively new but already im¬
portant port.
The tropical vegetation on the sides of the canal
as we approach the locks, the flocks of parrakeets
and other highly-coloured birds, as well as the
beautiful herons, attract the notice of those who
are new to the tropics. As we reach the entrances
of the first set of locks four electric mules, two on
either side, approach. Cables are quickly made
fast from the engines to the ship, holding it in the
middle of the lock away from the sides. The
mules climb the inclines on either side of the locks
on cogged tracks and we are thus towed into the
first chamber with its massive, damp, cement walls
towering above us. Looking aft, we note the
marvelous precision with which the immense gates
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
97
which, when we entered, were opened back into
recesses in the sides, begin to close. Slowly they
swing together. When they have closed, the
sluices are opened and the water begins to boil up
from the bottom in several places along the length
of the lock. So rapidly does the enclosure fill that
in eight minutes we are lifted to the level of the
next lock. The gates ahead then swing open and
we are drawn through into the next chamber.
The process of closing the gates behind us and
filling the lock again takes place and we are raised
to the level of the next and then to that of the
third and last of the colossal steps.
As the water rushing into this final lock lifts
the deck of the ship above the level of the last
gates which are to open and let us pass, Lake
Gatun bursts into view. The immense dam which
forms the lake is seen at the right, as is also the
spray rising from the falls of the overflow. The
power developed by this fall is used in generating
electricity not only for operating the ponderous
mechanism of this gigantic enterprise but for light¬
ing the whole Canal Zone and furnishing motive
power for many of the industrial activities con¬
nected with its operation. A little farther down is
the camp of the Tarpon Club. The water of the
Chagras river, below the spillway, teems with this
king of the finny tribe and other gamy fish to such
a degree as to kindle the enthusiasm of all lovers
of angling and excite the envy of those who have
98 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
not enjoyed the privilege of battle royal with this
pride of rod and reel.
Finally, when, by the complete filling of this
last lock chamber, we have been raised eighty-five
feet above the level from which we started, the
last gates swing slowly open; we are towed a little
farther ; the cables are cast off ; the vessel proceeds
under her own steam. One never ceases to marvel
at the wonderful precision with which everything
proceeds in connection with the passing of vessels
through the locks of the canal. There is no con¬
fusion, bustle, or noise. The forces at work are
silent ones. The turning of electric switches in
the control tower by persons out of sight releases
and directs the power by which all the mighty ma¬
chinery is moved.
We cross the backbone of the continent on this
beautiful artificial body of fresh water studded
with islands and surrounded by dense tropical
vegetation indicating the fertility of the land on
the isthmus. Bird life abounds here; strange
animals, the ant bear, the sloth, and the iguana, the
latter a bright-coloured, lively, herbivorous, edible
lizard that reaches a length of five feet, inhabit the
shores of this newly-made lake. If we are fortu¬
nate we shall see alligators basking on the banks at
the Pacific end of the lake. Adventurous hunters
among the canal employees shoot wild hogs, deer,
tapir, monkeys, and big boas in the tangled forests
upon which we are looking.
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
99
At a distance of a few miles in either direction,
primitive tribes of Indians inhabit the uncultivated
jungle. It is hard to realise the anomaly of the
situation. Here on the isthmus it is but a step
from the spot where man’s dominion over nature
is complete to where nature runs riot; and but a
short distance from the dwellings of the most
highly civilised society, employing the latest instru¬
ments of scientific precision, to the most primitive
huts occupied by a people whose weapons are the
bow and arrow, and who exist upon game, fish,
and the fruits and roots of the forest. Within the
radius of a few miles we have the contrasts of the
dominance of nature by man in the greatest feats
known to mechanical, electrical, and sanitary engi¬
neering, and the domination of primitive man by
nature, and the terror of the genii supposed to
inhabit the elements and natural objects by which
he is surrounded. The difference lies not so much
in the variations of the natural capacities of the
races as in the elements of faith and hope instilled
into the one through the religion of Jesus Christ,
which elevates man and makes him a co-worker
with God, and the lack of any such knowledge of
God in the other. Who can know and feel this
without at the same time feeling a personal re¬
sponsibility for the degraded condition of these
neglected and helpless brethren of the forest?
We were impressed on this journey by the great
amount of life seen in the waters on the first part
100 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
of the trip and off the coast of Ecuador. Schools
of whales and porpoises were seen from time to
time as well as great numbers of rays, awkwardly
leaping from the water and turning like immense
pancakes. Turtles were seen swimming on the
surface ; and the occasional fin of a shark showing
above the calm water reminded one that, inviting
as the water looked, a swim would hardly be ad¬
visable. One could readily believe the stories told
of extraordinary catches in this happy hunting
ground of the deep sea fisherman.
The aspect presented by the coast throughout
the whole length of Peru is drear and desolate.
Although we are in the tropics, the sea air is cold
because of the chilly current which sweeps north¬
ward from the Antarctic Ocean. Because of the
absorption of moisture from the atmosphere by
this same cold current, there is no rainfall. For
the greater part of the way the barren, desert
mountains rise directly from the sea. There is not
a sprig of vegetation to be seen; the deep gorges
are partially filled with white sand from the ocean,
which is driven up the mountain sides by the
strong wind. Traveling along the coast of Peru,
we are for days in sight of these dreary, repelling,
desert walls of rock. The play of colours in the
changing light upon the weathered cliffs is fre¬
quently very beautiful, but the ever-present con¬
sciousness that life on such a shore is impossible,
robs the metallic beauty of its attraction. The
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
101
only green patches along the coast are the irri¬
gated spots along the courses of the small rivers
fed by the melting glaciers of the interior. Even
these are hidden from the view of those at sea by
the sand dunes between the shore and the river bed.
The fish life had attracted our attention off
Ecuador, but it is the abundance of bird life that
impresses one along the coast farther south.
Morning and evening great flocks of long-necked
black birds, flying a short distance above the water
in a long-drawn-out line miles in length, give the
appearance of an advancing ocean wave. Sluggish
swarms of pelicans skim over the water on their
way to and from their resting and feeding places.
Perhaps one of the most interesting types is a
smaller bird that flies in flocks overhead following
the schools of fish below. All at once, apparently
at a signal from the leader, the whole flock dives
into the sea with a splash, a veritable shower of
birds. Gulls of various types abound and, in the
harbours, the gambols of the seals attract the at¬
tention of the passengers.
This great abundance of bird life constitutes
one of the sources of wealth of Peru. Because of
the absence of rain, the droppings of these birds
are preserved indefinitely on the islands which they
choose as roosting and nesting places. The birds
are protected by law, and Peruvian “ guano ” has
become a household word with the American and
European farmer. In fact, it was largely the use
102 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
of this “ guano,” learned from the Incas, that ac¬
customed Europe and America to the use of arti¬
ficial fertilisers and created the present demand,
causing the supply of them to become one of the
great matters of international concern.
Confusion is the first impression of Callao,
Peru, the seaport for the capital, Lima, which is
but seven miles away, and connected with its sea¬
port by both steam and trolley as well as by a dis¬
reputable automobile road. Our vessel does not
dock but anchors at sea a mile or so from the
customs wharf. While doctor and port officials
come aboard, there gathers around the gangway,
at just a little distance from the ship, a large num¬
ber of launches carrying hotel runners and bag¬
gage men, each of the latter with a number on his
cap. As soon as the quarantine flag is lowered,
there is a rush on the part of all of these boats,
each trying to reach the gangway first. Then
comes a scramble. The men on the more distant
boats jump on to those which are nearer the gang¬
way. Clothing is torn, and hats are lost in the
mad rush to reach the deck. Those that cannot
reach the steps catch hold of the railing and pull
themselves up along the outside. Once this rush¬
ing, vociferating mob has arrived on board, how¬
ever, the whole attitude of each individual com¬
pletely changes. They become all smiles and cour¬
tesies as they circulate among the passengers,
showing their cards and offering their services.
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
103
Keep your stateroom locked, however, and look
well to your pocket-book, for some of the most
clever thievery in the western world is accom¬
plished along this coast. Nevertheless, it is fairly
safe to give one’s luggage to any of the regular,
licensed carriers with a number on his hat.
From the number of ticket venders in the streets,
and from their insistence that you purchase a par¬
ticular ticket and thereby secure an easy fortune,
one would say that the lottery was the biggest
thing in Lima. In order that you may tempt luck
in all its forms, men and women, young and old,
boys and girls, unfortunate and prosperous, crip¬
pled and well-formed, ragged and richly-dressed,
idiotic and intelligent, accost you at every turn,
follow you along the street, one on each side and
another in front, meet you at the hotel door, and
thrust their dirty tickets before you at the restau¬
rant tables. Each assures you that he alone has the
lucky number which will secure you a fortune at
the next weekly drawing. Mr. A. T. Vasquez, of
Lima, remarked, the day of my arrival, that one-
third of the people were selling lottery tickets and
the other two-thirds scanning the newspapers to
discover if they had drawn a prize.
This prominence of the lottery is an indication
of the spirit with which the people in this section
of the world too often face the problems of life.
The Spanish destroyers of the Indian civilisations
and their immediate successors secured their ill-
104 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
gotten wealth too easily, and the fever seems to
have permeated the blood. There is altogether too
common a tendency to look upon wealth or upon
any prominent position secured in life as having
been attained purely by chance. In speaking of
wealth acquired or of a good position secured, the
most universal tendency is to speak of the person
as being lucky. One almost never hears reference
to good fortune as being acquired by hard work
and perseverance. Toil for the reward of attain¬
ing a goal is unthought of. That labour can be its
own reward does not enter the imagination. For
one of any social standing to work with the hands
is unthinkable. These ideas have tended to create
the class of parasites of which South American
writers complain so bitterly.
Lima, long the most important city in the W est-
ern Hemisphere, is well laid out and in many re¬
spects a beautiful city. It contains many palatial
dwellings built in the old Spanish style; boasts the
oldest university in the New World, a public li¬
brary, a zoological garden, a museum, a cathedral
on the main plaza in which are exhibited the bones
of Pizarro in a glass case, several well-paved
streets, and many other features of interest.
These, however, do not attract us at this time. We
wish to penetrate the Latin veneer of Peru and
learn more about the Indian upon whose industry
the parasitic urban population exists, his language,
his needs, and the conditions under which he lives.
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
105
During my stay in Lima I succeeded in finding
some elementary grammars and vocabularies of the
Indian dialects so that I was able to begin a study
of the Quechua, the most widely spoken language
of the Upper Andean region.
From Callao, we took boat to Mollendo, another
port in Peru from which there is railway com¬
munication with the elevated valleys and tableland
of the interior where the Inca civilisation reached
the acme of its power and influence. Bolivia is
also reached from this port via Lake Titicaca by
boat and rail to La Paz, the capital of that coun¬
try, the most thoroughly Indian of all Indian
America.
There are but two trains a week to the town of
Puno on Lake Titicaca with a stop-over in the
city of Arequipa. In Peru trains run only in the
day time. For the first few miles out of Mollendo
the railroad runs along the seashore, then turns
abruptly to begin the mountain climb. About half
way up the first range of mountains we reach a
zone on which clouds and fog hang for a part of
the year. While no rain falls here, the soil ab¬
sorbs sufficient moisture from the heavy fog dur¬
ing this season to support a scanty vegetation. In
this zone I was surprised at the abundance of wild
flowers, mostly of a reddish-yellow variety. On
and up we go, past the clouds and over the top of
the first mountain range onto a wide desert plain
on which absolutely nothing grows except on the
106 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
irrigated spot near the railway station at which we
stop for water.
The next hour or so of the journey is across
this dry, dusty plain, overspread with the famous
crescent-shaped sand dunes which look like im¬
mense low-lying haycocks covering the surface as
far as eye can reach. This crossed, we again
begin to rise and climb up, up, up, around, be¬
tween, and over piles of rock until the summit of
the second range is reached, and we begin a grad¬
ual descent of the rugged, barren mountain wall.
Suddenly, away below, in the bottom of a deep
gorge at our left, appears a narrow band of green,
the cultivated sides of the river, the waters of
which are the cause of the fertility of the valley
of Arequipa. The rest of the day the way is along
the sides of this mountain gorge, dry and desert
everywhere, except at the bottom where the width
of green ranges anywhere from a few yards to
as many rods. The rainlessness of the section
through which we are passing is indicated not only
by the barrenness of the rocks of which the moun¬
tains are composed, but by the fact that the roofs
of the houses, as well as the sides, are plastered
with mud.
At the stations, women bring for sale baskets
of the most delicious figs I have ever tasted. We
notice, as we pass cultivated patches, that the fig
trees, being more hardy than the other plants,
occupy the extreme outer edge of the irrigated
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
107
space. Like the olive of Palestine, the fig gathers
sweetness from the rock.
Arequipa is not an Indian city, that is, its in¬
habitants are Latinised. Spanish is the language
of all, and one sees very few Indians in their
native costume on the streets. From this point on,
however, we enter Indian America again.
I had been surprised when told that the business
activity in Arequipa was due to its being an agri¬
cultural center. The territory through which we
pass to reach the city is arid and barren, and the
extent of the narrow valley was not sufficient to
produce the business life of so large a population.
Soon after leaving the city, however, on our ascent
of the last range of mountains before reaching the
central plateau, we enter the so-called agricultural
country and see the source of the hides and wool,
the manufacture of which into woolen and leather
goods furnishes employment for so many in the
city below. Herds of cattle and flocks of sheep,
llamas, and alpacas are to be seen grazing on the
dry-looking wiry grass, the presence of which in¬
dicates a certain amount of regular rainfall. The
railroad is built up the side of the volcano on a
roadbed cut through volcanic ash and breccia. The
slopes of the mountains we are now climbing con¬
stitute an extensive grazing country. Here large
flocks are tended by Indian shepherds and shep¬
herdesses who spend all their time in the open with
the animals.
108 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
There is not much wild animal or bird life, but
occasionally small herds of the fleet vicuna are
seen scudding over the mountain sides away from
the passing train. There are no forests. The
mountains of the Upper Andes are bare of trees.
The people are dependent for fuel upon the dried
droppings of the flock and upon a small shrub
called “ tola.*9 In the higher altitudes where even
the “ tola ” will not grow, a species of resinous
moss called “ yareta” found in thick, dense
bunches that the inhabitants say take one hundred
years to grow, is the fuel used for cooking.
The change in the character of the vegetation
as one climbs the Andes is very noticeable. At the
altitude of Arequipa, corn, figs, sugar cane, and
many other semi-tropical products grow luxuri¬
antly. One soon leaves the corn region below and
finds wheat thriving, while a little higher it is too
cold for wheat, and barley becomes the cereal crop.
Higher still, neither wheat nor barley can be
grown, and potatoes are practically the only crop.
Even potatoes will not grow in the higher alti¬
tudes where are found only the slow-growing moss
and a short, wiry grass which forms pasture for
sheep and llama almost up to the snow line.
As in the case of a sea voyage some passenger
is almost sure to be seasick, so, on a train climbing
the mountains of South America, some one is
almost sure to have the mountain sickness. While
people are differently affected, this sickness usually
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
109
begins with a maddening headache. I have seen
strong men lose consciousness. Others have severe
attacks of vomiting. Some do not suffer much
inconvenience on changing rapidly from a lower
to a higher altitude. Others do not care to make
the trip in one day, but stay over a day or two at
some point, half way up, in order to accustom
themselves gradually to the change. Since the in¬
convenience is caused by partial asphyxiation due
to the lack of oxygen in the air, those who are sub¬
ject to it can sometimes avoid an attack by constant
deep breathing during the ascent, thereby keeping
the blood well oxygenated.
One notes the primitive industries which the
Indian shepherds carry on while tending their
flocks. They are seen at the sides of the streams
washing small lots of wool which they spread out
on the stones to dry. They then pull it out into a
fluffy mass which they carry around with them,
converting it, as they journey, into strong yarn by
means of a primitive spindle which hangs sus¬
pended by the fibers of the wool itself. The wool
is fed to it from the fluffy bundle under the arm
and the spindle kept in motion by an occasional
twirl. A woven sling is a constant accompani¬
ment of every shepherd, man, woman, boy, or girl.
The slings are used to keep the flocks together by
throwing stones ahead of, or at, any straying ani¬
mal. Many shepherdesses are seen carrying bun¬
dles on their backs in a brightly-coloured cloth
110 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
suspended around the neck by tying the comers
together. Within this bundle is invariably hid¬
den the youngest member of the shepherd
family, whose face is frequently seen peering out
of the folds of the woolen wrap by which he is
suspended.
A constant climb of several hours from Are-
quipa brings us to the summit. The highest point
reached on this journey is between 14,000 and
15,000 feet above sea level. The cold, piercing,
rarefied atmosphere of the summit becomes more
endurable as we descend to the drab, bleak, cheer¬
less, treeless plain over which flocks of sheep,
llamas, and alpacas are roaming and feeding on
the dry grass. They are tended by Indians who
live in small one-roomed, grass-covered adobe huts,
in the vicinity of each of which is the mud-walled
enclosure for the flocks. The scene is dreary,
monotonous, and desolate.
Puno, the railway terminal on Lake Titicaca in
South-Central Peru, is the capital of the Depart¬
ment of the same name, which includes the Peru¬
vian section of the Lake Titicaca basin. The city
is inhabited by both Aymara and Quechua speak¬
ing Indians. The Aymaras were the only race
brought under the Inca rule who were allowed to
retain their own language. Quechua is the lan¬
guage spoken by all other Indians of the central
Andean region from Quito, Ecuador, to Bolivia
and the borders of Argentine and Chile. This
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
111
being the language of the Incas was imposed on
all tribes assimilated by them.
Before the train stopped at Puno, our car was
boarded by a crowd of Aymara Indian boys and
men, vociferating, pushing, crowding one another
and everybody else as they forced their way
through the aisle in their struggle to be the first to
improve the opportunity to earn a few cents by
carrying our hand baggage.
In spite of their picturesqueness as seen from
the train, guarding their flocks or driving their
trains of llamas, the women, bulkily-skirted, carry¬
ing their gaudy bundles and the men in their
highly-coloured ponchos, it would be hard to
imagine a more repulsive lot than these Highland
Indians. With faces disfigured by the pouch
formed in the cheek by the constant presence of
the large quid of coca leaves, lips and corners of
the mouth filthy with green saliva, eyes dull, ex¬
pression apathetic, bodies that are never bathed
clothed in rags that are never washed, they would
be repulsive in the extreme without taking into
account the odours emitted from their bodies and
liquor-laden breaths. Passengers are obliged to
push their way out of the car and down the steps
through this repellent crowd which the Railroad
Company apparently makes no effort to restrain or
organise in the interests of the traveling public. I
was in no hurry and remained in my seat, but it
resulted only in causing a number of boys to stand
112 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
near, blocking the way for those who were trying
to leave the car. When I found that there was
practically no choice in point of cleanliness between
the different members of the crowd clamouring for
my baggage, I delivered my grips to one of the
foremost who immediately tied them together with
a rawhide rope and placed them on his back in
contact with his vile clothing.
As soon as I began to walk, I found that I was
being threatened with an attack of mountain sick¬
ness which I had hoped to avoid by deep breathing.
The fact is, I had become so interested in conver¬
sation with my fellow-passengers that I had not
been very faithful in employing the preventive. I
found it best to walk very moderately on the way
to the Mission home with Mr. H. M. Colburn, of
the Lake Titicaca Mission, who had kindly met me
at the station. Mrs. Field, the missionary mother,
who has three children on this held at work among
the Indians, had supper ready for us. The first
taste of food, however, revealed the fact that my
stomach was in no condition to retain it, and I
begged permission to leave the table and lie on the
sofa. I was able thus to join in the conversation.
A clean, intelligent-looking, pleasant-faced In¬
dian girl convert was waiting on the table and
doing the work of the house. Her smile was the
hrst I had seen on the face of an Indian in Peru.
During the evening, some Indian converts who
were passing through the town came in to see the
CRISTOBAL TO PUNO, PERU
113
missionaries. The difference between these callers
and the Indians seen at the station was very strik¬
ing. These were clean, stalwart, bright-looking
men. The difference in their appearance was due
to the fact that they had given up the use of drink
and coca, and had begun to cultivate habits of
cleanliness. Contact with the mission had made
such a change that it was hard to realise that these
men belonged to the same race as the repulsive
beings met at the station.
It was easy to understand the enthusiasm of the
young missionaries who are cheerfully enduring
the privation, isolation and discomforts of life in
this altitude. Results such as these constitute the
“ hundred fold in this life.” I eagerly accepted
the invitation to visit Plateria, the first station
established by the Mission.
VIII
THE HIGHLANDS OK SOUTHERN PERU
1AKE TITICACA, between Peru and Bo-
| livia, is the highest body of navigable water
in the world, its surface being 12,500 feet
above the level of the sea and but 500 feet below
the average level of the irregular plateau upon
which it lies. One hundred and thirty miles long
by thirty wide, measuring seven hundred feet at
its greatest depth, flooding many shallow indenta¬
tions among the surrounding hills, it is dotted with
picturesque islands upon which as well as upon its
southern shore are prehistoric ruins of whose
builders not even a tradition remains.
While not teeming with life, as does Lake Tex-
coco of Mexico, the lake is frequented by multi¬
tudes of swimming and wading birds. One sees
flocks of beautiful long-legged flamingos, curved-
beaked ibises, herons, and cranes among the wad¬
ers. Of the swimmers, ducks, grebes, gulls, and
some geese are seen. A few hours’ hunt with a
twenty-two caliber rifle secured a very good bag
of various bird specimens which I sent to the
American Museum of Natural History in New
York. Owing to defective preparation, however,
114
HIGHLANDS OF SOUTHERN PERU 115
they did not arrive in good shape and could not be
mounted. Many of these birds nest upon the
islands of floating weeds in the shallow inlets and
marshes. The gathering of the eggs as well as the
catching of a species of small fish inhabiting the
water furnish a supplementary occupation and
means of existence to the hard-pressed Indian
population. Upon the shores of the lake are
pastured llamas, and flocks of very inferior sheep,
while a degenerated race of cattle feed upon the
reeds growing in the shallow parts. The cattle
wade in up to their sides and, putting their heads
under the cold water, seize the soft, tender part of
the reed and pull and bite it off, then, with raised
head, chew and swallow the delicate morsel. I am
told that cattle and sheep deteriorate very quickly
at this altitude, whether from the effects of the
rarefied atmosphere, the constant cold, the lack of
proper nourishment, or as a result of all three,
none of my informants seemed to know.
A notable feature of the lake is the peculiar reed
called “ totora ” that grows upon its bottom in all
shallow places. Among its many uses it is eaten
by the dwarfed cattle; the lower white portion is
used as food by the Indians themselves. Dried, it
is used in the manufacture of rude mats and par¬
titions. Finally, long bundles of it are so tied to¬
gether as to form the light boat or raft on which
the Indians have from time immemorial navigated
the lake, and which is unlike anything found else-
116 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
where. Even the sails of this singular craft are
made from this useful reed.
A most primitive kind of agriculture is pursued
by the inhabitants of the terraced hills and en¬
closed plains of interior Peru. The ground is
broken with a short-handled, heavy hoe, or, if oxen
are used, with a primitive wooden plow. The hard
clods are then broken up with a long-handled ham¬
mer made by tying a stone onto the end of a stick.
Grain is beaten from the straw with sticks, then
tossed into the air to allow the wind to blow away
the chaff.
The Indians throughout this elevated region are
forced to a standard of living little above the ani¬
mals they tend. Exhausted from the labours of
the day, the Indian throws himself upon the mud
floor of his hut where he passes the night with no
other cover than the poncho which has served to
protect him during the day. I was inclined to be
skeptical when a fellow-traveler, a mining engi¬
neer, told me that he had frequently come across
huts so small that there was not room enough for
the many occupants to lie down on the floor, and
that they passed the night in a crouching position,
huddled together like a lot of sheep. My skepti¬
cism vanished, however, when, after telling a mis¬
sionary nurse of this statement, she said :
“ Oh, yes. It is perfectly true. I was called a
short time ago to a confinement case where there
were thirteen persons in the one-roomed hut with
HIGHLANDS OF SOUTHERN PERU 117
the sick woman. I immediately ordered them all
out of doors. Later, I found it was raining and
that they were standing against the sides of the hut
under the eaves trying to keep dry. I allowed
them to return and stretched a sheet across a
corner of the room to secure what privacy I could
for the woman and thus attended to her, with the
other thirteen persons present.”
The climate of the tableland, except in sheltered
areas, is too cold for wheat, and the principal crops
are barley and potatoes. The cereal diet is parched
barley. Besides barley and potatoes and grass for
pastures of the llamas, alpacas, and sheep, the soil
produces a small seed called “ quinua ” and a cer¬
tain oxalis bulb that is prepared in the same way
as the potato.
The potatoes are preserved in a manner peculiar,
I think, to Peru and Bolivia. After being dug,
they are left exposed to the cold, frosty air of the
night and allowed to freeze solid. The following
day when the heat of the sun has thawed them out,
leaving each potato a soft mass, the Indians tread
on them, pressing out the water with their feet.
They are then left exposed to the sun until per¬
fectly dry. This leaves the potato a light ball of
starch which can be preserved indefinitely. This
dried potato or “ chuno as it is called, then be¬
comes an article of commerce very easy of trans¬
portation on the backs of llamas. It is prepared
for food by being beaten in a mortar into small
118 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
pieces, soaked over night in water, and afterwards
boiled.
Deep, cold, and cheerless, reflecting treeless,
snow-clad mountains upon the limpid surface, the
waters of the overflow of Lake Titicaca irrigate no
fertile plains but stagnate and evaporate in the
salt marshes of southern Bolivia. The fate of this
disappearing inland sea is typical of that of the
sad, taciturn, depressed Indian race vegetating
upon its borders in misery, hopelessness, and vice.
A new element has, however, been recently intro¬
duced into the Indian life of the Department of
Puno. An American couple, Mr. and Mrs. F. A.
Stahl, decided to devote themselves to service
among the Indians of this inhospitable region and
led in the founding of the Lake Titicaca Mission
of the Seventh Day Adventists. This mission,
which is succeeding beyond the dreams of its
founders and friends, bids fair to revolutionise the
Lake District. These missionaries seem to have
found the key to the problem of winning the In¬
dian’s confidence and faith and stirring up his en¬
thusiasm and ambition, qualities he had been sup¬
posed to lack entirely.
On my first trip to Lima, a Peruvian doctor had
boarded the ship at Salaverry and on learning that,
as representative of the American Bible Society, it
was part of my business to visit the Protestant
Mission stations, had said :
“ The Protestants are doing a great deal of good
HIGHLANDS OF SOUTHERN PERU 119
work among the Indians in the Puno district.
Their good work helped us to secure religious
liberty in Peru.”
He did not think we were likely to do much
among the white people, but the “ Protestants are
making men out of the Indians.” I had heard
much of this missionary work in the Lake Titicaca
region, and was therefore very glad of this oppor¬
tunity to see for myself the methods that had been
employed with such good results by the Adventist
missionaries. Started twelve years ago by Mr. and
Mrs. F. A. Stahl, the mission has had a steady and
rapid growth until now, 1923, they have a church
membership of over 5,000, seventy-eight day
schools with 3,700 pupils in attendance, taught by
nearly one hundred native teachers, under the
supervision of American missionaries.
I found the missionaries, all young married
couples, enduring cheerfully all manner of hard¬
ships. Not only are they exposed to the diseases
of filth, typhoid, typhus, and smallpox, as well as
various skin diseases to which the Indians are sub¬
ject, but the climate is always too cold for comfort.
Houses are of mud, and not heated. In places, the
only available fuel is the dung of the llama gath¬
ered by the shepherds. The piercing cold air chaps
the hands, peels the face, and keeps the lips con¬
stantly cracked and bleeding. Living at these alti¬
tudes not only puts an extra strain upon the heart
but affects unfavourably the whole nervous system.
129 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
These young people were, however, enthusiastic
over their work, because of the success they were
having in changing the lives and outlook of their
beloved Indians. In company with Mr. H. M.
Colburn I visited Plateria, where the mission sum¬
mer school for teachers was in session. There I
saw seventy-six young men and six young Indian
women in a large, unfinished church building of
adobe that they had helped to complete since arriv¬
ing at Plateria for the school session, studying to
become better fitted to teach their own people.
There having been delay in getting the building
ready, these teachers and prospective teachers had
cheerfully carried bricks to complete the walls, and
put on the zinc roof with their own hands in order
to have the building ready for this summer school.
The rainy season had commenced when I arrived.
The mud floor was damp. Doors and windows
were wanting. The American missionaries sat in
their overcoats and wraps. The students were
gathered around tables and seated on backless
benches. It would be hard to imagine a normal
school working under less favourable conditions.
I spoke to them three times with my overcoat on,
and this was their summer.
The date of my first visit was December 24th
and 25th, Christmas, 1921. Saturday, the 24th, was
given to religious services for the community, and
to the Bible school. Sunday there was no school
session, and students could be seen, singly and in
QUECHUA AND AYMARA INDIANS APPEALING TO
SUPT. WILCOX OF ADVENTIST MISSION TO ES¬
TABLISH SCHOOLS IN THEIR VILLAGES.
CHRISTIAN PUPILS AND TEACHERS CELEBRATING
INDEPENDENCE DAY, PLATER I A, PERU.
HIGHLANDS OF SOUTHERN PERU 121
groups, sitting on the sunny side of buildings,
rocks, and slopes, struggling with the intricacies of
Spanish grammar, a language foreign to them,
grappling with problems in arithmetic or studying
a geography, history, or Bible lesson. There was
a greater percentage of these students applying
themselves to their work than would be found dur¬
ing a holiday in any school of the home land.
Plateria is a twenty-mile horseback ride from
Puno and is a purely Indian community. On the
way out, I had noticed the affection with which
many whom we met saluted Mr. Colburn as
“ Brother.” Arriving in the neighbourhood of the
Mission station, it was easy to see the influence of
the mission upon the lives and homes of the people.
There were attempts at cleanliness not to be seen
elsewhere. Even windows were to be seen in some
of the huts. Bight having come into the lives of
the people, they wanted it in their homes also.
It did one’s heart good to see the cheerful, earn¬
est aspect of these young Indian students. There
is not another such group in all America south of
Mexico. Their presence was abundant proof that
when an Indian has something to live for, his en¬
thusiasm can be aroused. Not only are these
young people teachers ; they are lay evangelists and
colporteurs as well. During my visit at this sum¬
mer school they promised to take back to their
homes and sell more than 10,000 Gospels and 1,000
Bibles during the coming year* and they more that\
122 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
fulfilled their promise. They took great pride in
telling me of the success of the work of the Gospel
in the Lake Titicaca region during the year. At
that time, the missionaries told me they thought
that the number of baptisms would reach 1,000.
When reports finally came in, it was found that
more than 1,200 had been baptised and received
into the church during the year.
Every Indian convert gives up the use of
“ chicha ” an intoxicating drink manufactured
locally; the chewing of “ coca” leaves, and none of
them use tobacco. When the deadening effects of
the coca habit have disappeared, the countenance
of the Indian is no longer dull and apathetic. He
becomes intelligent and alert, and there is a ten¬
dency to clean up body, clothing, and home; also
a desire to learn to read and make something of
themselves.
The method of procedure of the Adventist mis¬
sionaries has been as follows : a desirable location,
from which manv Indians can be reached, is se-
cured. The missionary and wife locating there at
once begin treatment of the sick, followed by
preaching and teaching. A school is soon opened
at the station. As the work spreads, other centers
want schools, and out-stations are established in
charge of native teachers. So great is the demand
for schools that frequently the teachers are but
boys in the primary grades. They are able, how¬
ever, to teach what they have learned to those who
HIGHLANDS OF SOUTHERN PERU 123
know nothing at all of letters. It is significant of
the rapidity with which the work is spreading and
of the way in which available teaching material is
pressed into service, that the mission made it a rule
last year not to send out any more young men as
teachers who had not themselves passed the fourth
grade !
The missionary in charge of the central station
visits the out-stations regularly for clinical work
at the dispensaries and to supervise the work being
done by the native teachers, as well as for preach¬
ing and organising. The best scholars from the
out-stations are brought to the central school where
the missionaries live. Here they live upon food
brought to them by their parents and sleep on the
floor of the hut of some friend while studying
under the more direct supervision of the mission¬
ary. The brightest of these selected pupils, if they
show any aptitude for teaching, are sent to the
Normal School at Juliaca. The attendance at the
summer normal is compulsory for all who are at¬
tempting to teach. Thus, each year the workers go
out better qualified for their tasks than they had
been the preceding year.
Not only do the missionaries help the sick, look
after the schools, and preach, but they frequently
protect the Indians against the injustices that the
landlords attempt to perpetrate upon them in de¬
priving them of their lands and animals and forc¬
ing them to perform illegal services. There have
124 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
been cases where they have appealed, over the
heads of the local authorities, directly to the Presi¬
dent, insisting upon respect for the laws protecting
the Indian. They also help them to settle quarrels
among themselves without going to law. Hence,
while the parasitic landlords, priests, and lawyers
hate the missionary for the protection he gives the
Indians, the latter look upon him as their best
friend.
News of these sympathetic white people who
love and help the Indians has spread through all
the region, and now the missionaries are con¬
stantly receiving petitions from distant villages and
communities, asking that they come and establish
schools. During the past year, one hundred and
seventy such applications for teachers were turned
down because of lack of workers. The mission is
teaching self-help and now requires the applicants
to build a schoolhouse and to promise help towards
the support of a teacher before it will consider
opening a school.
A short time ago some representative Indians
came a distance of seven days’ journey, laid 120
soles, about $40.00 gold, on the missionaries’ desk,
and said they wanted a teacher. The money was
sufficient to pay six month’s salary. They were
told that there was no one ready who was fit to
teach, but that if they would return home and put
up a school building, the mission would try to have
a boy ready to send them. They left the money
HIGHLANDS OF SOUTHERN PERU 125
with the missionary and returned home. Before
long they came back, accompanied by others, say¬
ing : “ Now we are ready. We have built three
school-houses. We want three teachers ” ! ! !
An Indian chief came from a long distance to
Plateria, asking for a teacher to take to his people
and promising to support him. Upon being told
that there was no one who could go, he refused to
return home. He said that he had promised his
people to bring them a teacher and that he could
not go back to them and say he had failed. He
waited in the place ten days, refusing to take
“ No ” for an answer. Finally the missionary
went into the school and asked for a volunteer to
go and help this man’s people learn to read. A boy
from the fourth grade volunteered, was sent, and
is doing well.
It seems to me that the Adventists are using
the logical and Scriptural method of approach.
Preaching, unless it carries with it sympathetic
help for the body as well, cannot be expected
to accomplish much among this needy people.
“ Whoso hath this world’s good and seeth his
brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of
God in him ? ” Every mission to the Indians
should have three lines of activity, three legs as it
were to stand on, the missionary tripod composed
of healing, teaching, preaching. This was the
method of the Master; and is the method of ap-
126 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
proach being used so successfully in reaching the
hearts of the Indians in the Lake Titicaca region.
For many reasons agricultural and industrial
teaching should, however, go hand in hand with
teaching to read. This industrial education, I am
told, will henceforth be given in the new Normal
school now being completed at Juliaca, Peru.
During the year 1921, some young American
missionaries, Messrs. Paul Cragin and W. F.
Barker, located with their families in Yungay,
Peru. They were thoroughly in earnest and en¬
thusiastic ; but had confined their efforts to preach¬
ing only. As I was leaving Peru I met Mr. Barker
and family in Callao. They had been driven out
of Yungay by a mob of Indians, led by Franciscan
friars. The rains were late in coming, the friars
told the Indians that the drought was due to the
presence of the Protestants, and that they must be
driven out before they could expect God’s blessing
upon their crops.
One of these friars, Leonardo Garcia, published
a leaflet inserted in “ El Comercio ” of Lima, the
5th of December, 1921, justifying their action.
He writes :
“ We did not ask and secure the expulsion of the
Protestants because of their ideas, but because, by
reason of their public preaching in the plaza and
in the streets, they were a menace to the integrity
of the Catholic religion and purity of customs;
because they come to upset public order, sowing
HIGHLANDS OF SOUTHERN PERU 127
tares and division in the villages; because their
public preaching will deprive the Indian of his re¬
ligion and, with it, the fear of God and respect
which he has for the priests, the only things which
restrain his indomitable passions and native hatred
for the white man.”
The missionaries had been labouring with some
success. There had been a few genuine conver¬
sions. They had not, however, done any medical
or educational work whatever; therefore had not
established themselves in the hearts of the Indians
by creating a point of contact and supplying a felt
and recognised need; hence the friars were able to
work upon the superstitions of the people and
arouse the mob. In the field where the Adventists
are working, they have so found their way into the
heart of the Indian by their interest in his temporal
welfare that their influence among them exceeds
that of the Roman clergy. The latter have never
done anything of an uplifting nature for the In¬
dians during the centuries of contact.
Learning the experiences of Brothers Barker
and Cragin from the mouth of Mr. Barker con¬
firmed my conviction that the Gospel must be
preached to the Indian through the love of Christ
expressing itself in activities for his welfare, as
well as in preaching the Gospel by word of mouth.
In the case of the Indian, after his cruel experi¬
ences with the white man, actions speak louder
than words.
IX
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
HE position of Bolivia in South America
may in some respects be compared to that
of Switzerland in Europe. It is a land¬
locked country having no seaport, and it contains
the highest mountains of the lofty range that trav¬
erses the Western Continent. Here, however,
the likeness ends. Switzerland is small, while
sparsely-populated Bolivia embraces a vast unde¬
veloped domain in the tropical Amazon valley —
eightv-four percent of the population of Bolivia,
however, dwell in this mountainous region.
Whereas the people of Switzerland are self-
governing, alert, and progressive Europeans, but
twelve percent of the population of Bolivia are
white. More than fifty percent of the rest are
pure Indian, mentally dull, apathetic, and non¬
progressive, and the remaining mixed race speak
the Indian languages in preference to Spanish.
The enslaved, landless condition of the native ele¬
ment coupled with ignorance and the vices of drink
and coca chewing are the causes of this stagnation
here, as in Peru and elsewhere in Indian America.
The night boat from Puno, Peru, arrives at the
128
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
129
Bolivian port of Guaqui at about ten the following
morning. La Paz is but a few hours’ run from
Guaqui, and is reached on the afternoon of the
same day. I was fortunate in having as traveling
companion on this journey Professor E. C. Phil¬
lips, of Lakeman, Mo., a member of the American
Educational Mission to Peru. We rose before
daylight in order to witness one of the grandest
sights in the two Americas — sunrise on Lake Titi¬
caca, in full view of the eighty or more unbroken
miles of snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Real,
the loftiest portion of the Western World.
It was hard to realise that we were within the
tropics. In spite of overcoats and gloves the pierc¬
ing, cold wind made us seek the protection of the
smokestack. We were amply rewarded, however,
when with the morning light these magnificent
mountains burst into view. The highest peaks are
at each end of the galaxy of snow caps, Sorata at
the north and Illimani at the south. At about
mid-day we left the port of Guaqui by train, but
throughout the day we were in sight of the Cordil¬
lera and never tired looking at those imposing-
piles of eternal snow lying between the northern
and southern sentinels.
The railroad from the lake to the capital passes
the dreary hamlet of Tiahuanaco which lies among
megalithic ruins of pre-Inca structure. Recent
excavations seem to furnish abundant proof that
Tiahuanaco was at one time the center of a
130 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
wealthy, populous kingdom. As one passes
through the dismal tableland on which the ruins
are located and notes that the crops, today, consist
of a dwarf-strawed barley and a small potato
which are cultivated on the plain and in small ter¬
raced patches on the surrounding hills and moun¬
tains ; that the pasture for the sheep and llamas and
scrawny cattle consists of a sparse, slow-growing,
wiry grass; that the whole region is absolutely
treeless, except where some enterprising land-
owner has set out a few eucalyptus trees in the
neighbourhood of the central building, one won¬
ders how a dense population could possibly have
subsisted in such a bleak and inhospitable climate.
One is inclined to accept the theory advanced by
Sir Edwin Markham and others that the climate
in the vicinity of Tiahuanaco has greatly changed
since the time of its prosperity, and that the
change was possibly brought about by the slow
elevation of the region to its present altitude of
two and a half miles above sea level. At this place,
little boys board the train selling miniature carv¬
ings of the monoliths found among the ruins.
Soon after leaving Tiahuanaco, pack trains of
loaded llamas indicate our approach to the inland
metropolis and capital, referred to sometimes as
the “ city in a kettle.”
First impressions of Ea Paz are difficult to
record because of the peculiar nature of the sen¬
sations aroused both by the strange, grotesque,
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
131
and fascinating local geographic setting and the
unique, bizarre, fantastic character of the popula¬
tion filling its streets and market places. We have
been hastening towards the highest peak of the
Cordillera Real. The outlines of the mountain
gorges are becoming clearer when, without warn¬
ing, we drop over the edge of a canon-like valley
and find ourselves winding in and out among
capped pillars of loosely-cemented, rapidly-disinte¬
grating conglomerate that fancy describes as tow¬
ers, monuments, skyscrapers, and cathedral spires,
while the spaces between them are streets, alleys,
and elevator shafts. In places, a roof protects
the track from the stones falling from the crumb¬
ling perpendicular masses that are composed of
rounded cobble-stone, pebbles, and gravel, showing
that they have been carved from what was once
the bottom of a body of water. Geologically
speaking, the valley is young. The instability of
its sides is evidenced by the wooden sluices on each
side of the railroad track to prevent washing out
of the road bed during the rains. Sluices also
carry the water quite a distance away from the
track to prevent as much as possible the erosion of
the sides of the valley near the road bed.
Suddenly the red tiles and white walls of the
buildings of the city, in their setting of green of
the eucalyptus trees in parks and gardens, burst
into view a thousand feet below. The beauty is
enhanced by the barrenness of the rocky sides of
132 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
the enclosing valley and the progressive fading of
the modern architecture of the business portion
of the city into the most primitive residences of
the Indians, consisting of one-roomed, thatched
huts.
In many places within the city of La Paz itself,
are evidences of the instability of the soil upon
which it rests. The streets are paved with the
rounded cobble-stone of which the sides of the val¬
ley are so largely composed. If, during the rains,
any of the stones in the pavement of the slop¬
ing streets become displaced, the water from
the first heavy shower running through the street
is more than likely to cut out a gulley which may
in a very short time reach serious proportions and
endanger the nearby buildings. People owning
houses with yards or vacant lots connected, must
keep these yards and lots paved, and renew break¬
ages just before the rains for protection against
the destructive effect of the downward rushing
water in its determination to carry everything
before it. Persons have invested in a building lot
in La Paz and begun construction, only to have the
rains come unexpectedly and undermine the foun¬
dations, carrying away both lot and building be¬
cause of the defective condition of the protecting
cover.
Not far from La Paz is a river of mud which,
though comparatively stable during the dry season,
starts on its long journey seaward as soon as the
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
133
rains begin. Everywhere in the vicinity of the
city, one feels that he is witnessing geography in
the making. The contour causes one to wonder
why a spot where foundations are so unstable
should have been chosen as the site of the principal
city of the country. After experiencing the cold,
raw winds of the tablelands at a thousand feet
higher altitude, one realises, however, that much
in the way of comfort has been gained in the de¬
creased elevation. Protection from the piercing
winds, and warmth from radiation from the sides
of the sunny valley are some compensation for the
instability of the crumbling surface.
The chief interest of La Paz, however, does not
by any means lie in its physical contour, but in
the mass of humanity here congregated. La Paz
is par excellence, the city of contrasts. There is
the contrast of the modern office building for the
conduct of business, with the stall of the Indian
woman merchant selling her primitive wares. The
contrast of the hotel restaurant conducted on the
European plan, with the market stall where fat
“chola” women sell boiled “ Chuno,” (dried po¬
tatoes), parched barley, and hulled corn to Indians
who, receiving the food in a corner of the poncho,
or in the folds of another piece of cloth, eat it as
they continue their journey or go about their busi¬
ness. Frequently the food is received in the home¬
made felt hat which is then carried in the hand
until the frugal repast is completed. In dress, the
134 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
contrast is between the latest styles of Paris and
the Indian costumes worn from time immemorial.
The primped and manicured belle of the white
population takes the same street car with the In¬
dian woman who will sit by the roadside to rest in
the suburbs of the city while she picks and eats the
lice from the head of the child accompanying her.
There is nothing to be met with anywhere com¬
parable to La Paz on market and feast days.
There is one principal market and two or three
other places as well that are set aside for the sale
of country products. These are filled to overflow¬
ing and the sidewalks of the streets within a few
blocks of the market places are given up entirely to
Indian women who, squatting with their backs to
the wall, spread their wares upon the edge of the
street and on the sidewalk in front of them. The
streets themselves are packed with passersby and
would-be purchasers. Troops of llamas that have
come from the higher altitudes bringing the
“ taquia ” that is so largely used for fuel, or the
dried potato which, because of its light weight, is
a convenient article of commerce, add picturesque¬
ness to the scene. Trains of mules and donkeys,
as well as hundreds of heavily-burdened Indians,
both men and women, bring the fruits of the lower
altitudes.
The products offered for sale in this primitive
way rival in strangeness and variety any market I
have ever visited: barley, quinua, fresh and dried
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
135
meats, cooked and dried chickens, water-fowl and
guinea pig, chuno, oca (dried oxalis bulbs) ; po¬
tatoes black, red, yellow, and white from the table¬
land ; apples, pears, wheat, and corn, peaches,
apricots, strawberries, and figs from the temperate
valleys ; besides bananas, oranges, pineapples,
limes, and custard apples from the tropic lowlands.
Vegetables and flowers in great variety, besides
an infinity of articles of native manufacture, line
both sides of the streets to tempt the would-be
purchaser.
The novelty of the activity of the streets is in¬
creased by the maze of colours in which the par¬
ticipants are clothed. Striped ponchos are the rule.
All the colours of the rainbow are present, besides
many not recorded in the list assigned to that ven¬
erable institution. As if to counteract the ever¬
present chilliness of the atmosphere and the dreary
drab of the plain, warm and bright colours are by
far the most popular, orange predominating, with
a strong intermingling of reds, purples, and
browns. The colouring is not monopolised by the
men, however, in the gaudy stripes of their
ponchos. The skirts of many of the women ex¬
hibit the same high colouring, with the difference
that each skirt is of a solid colour. Many are,
however, worn at a time, each one hung a little
higher than the one underneath it, allowing the
lower to show below in a ring of different colour.
One woman will have on at the same time skirts of
136 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple of different
shades. As these skirts are all made of heavy
homespun material, the combined weight is enor¬
mous. A lady told me that the skirts worn by her
girl at work in the kitchen weighed between
twenty-five and thirty pounds. I have no idea
what the weight of these multi-coloured skirts
would amount to, but should imagine it to be in
excess of those worn by the kitchen maid. The
most brightly coloured article, however, and the
one with which the most pains is taken in weaving
and blending of colours, is the “ lijlla,” the square
piece of cloth which is used as a wrap in which to
carry the bundle on the back. Nearly every
woman coming to market is burdened with such a
bundle suspended from the neck by a square knot
tied in the corners; and, in the majority of cases,
tucked away somewhere in the folds of the bundle
or between the articles the woman is bringing to
market, is the little Indian baby, the inseparable
companion of the mother, carried constantly in
this way until he is able to run alone.
On the streets of La Paz are to be seen many
Indians from the hot country of the Amazon val¬
ley, clad in their peculiar head dress and light
ponchos, shivering in the chilly air of this altitude
which one would think would be sure to bring
them down with grippe and pneumonia. Then
there is the peculiar and highly picturesque dress
of the women of mixed breed, called “ cholas”
BOLIVIAN, AYMARA, INDIAN WOMEN IN CHARAC¬
TERISTIC DRESS OF TABLELAND NEAR LA PAZ.
INDIAN MOUNTAIN HOME.
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
137
with their dainty shawl and high, white-painted,
Panama hat, with its black band and distinctive
bow. The bulging skirts do not come down too
low to showr off with satisfactory effect the fancy,
French-heeled, high-laced shoes.
There is very little that is modem to be seen on
the streets of La Paz during market day. It is as
if the sixteenth century had been projected into the
twentieth. The sensation of strangeness, peculi¬
arity, and anachronism is intensified by the fact,
evident on all sides, that this is not in any sense a
Latin community. The language spoken by both
Indian and Cholo, and the few white people that
one sees conducting business among them, is the
Aymara and not Spanish. In fact, if you do not
know, at least, the numbers in the Aymara lan¬
guage, the only way in wfiich you can conduct
business in this crowTded market-place is by the
language of signs entirely; or, by getting hold of
some native who understands Spanish sufficiently
to be able to interpret for you. A single visit to
the city of La Paz will convince one that for
Bolivia the term Latin America is a misnomer.
These people are not Latin in customs, in lan¬
guage, nor in religion.
Every city and village throughout Indian Amer¬
ica has its protecting saint or virgin, and the pro¬
tecting virgin of the city of La Paz is one who, it
is said, stopped a landslide, caused by an earth¬
quake, that threatened to engulf a portion of the
138 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
city. Every year at the celebration of the festival
of this virgin, a general holiday is proclaimed. All
places of business are closed. Almost the whole
city turns out to visit the chapel situated in a resi¬
dential suburb in which her image is kept.
All day long and throughout the night, groups
of masked Indians clad in grotesque garments and
carrying native instruments of music and noise,
proceed through the streets in dancing, jumping,
wriggling groups, with the crowd making its way
to the little chapel where the famous image is kept.
There in the midst of other images, among which
are those of the sun and moon, decorated with
tinsel and surrounded by burning candles, she
awaits the coming of the adoring multitude.
While the chapel is constantly filled with people on
their knees muttering prayers to the image, yet the
chief object of the pilgrimage seems to be an ex¬
cuse for drinking alcohol and rum. The groups
on arriving at the chapel, before entering to per¬
form their devotions, squat down in circles outside
as near as possible to the building, many of them
with their backs against it, and drink rum served
by the leader of the party. On coming out they
drink again. The visit to the chapel is but an
excuse for becoming beastly drunk. The march
and dance and music along the way are but on out¬
let for the exuberance of spirits produced before
the liquor accomplishes the. final stupefying effect.
The orgy is kept up all night, and before morn-
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
139
in g the streets are strewn with men, women, and
even children in the utter oblivion of complete
intoxication.
Shortly after my arrival in Peru, a patriotic
Peruvian said to me, speaking of the land-owning
class generally:
“ We have made a beast of burden of the Indian
and do not want him to become anything else. We
are jealous of any influences that would tend to
make a man of him.”
Another gentleman speaking of the attitude of
government and church toward the Indians, said :
“ We make a business of exploiting his vices.
The government makes the liquor and the church
furnishes the feasts, the occasions for the Indians
to consume it, increasing thereby the revenue of
the church and that of the government.”
There is probably no place in all the Americas
where the exploitation of this particular vice of
the Indian stands out more prominently than in the
city of La Paz.
In La Paz we see on a large scale that which
happens every year in small villages and communi¬
ties throughout Indian America. In Peru and
Bolivia when an Indian has gotten a little ahead
financially he will be notified by the priest that he
has been honoured by being chosen as the chief or
leader of the celebrations of the yearly feast in
honour of the protecting saint. This means that
his religious duty as the leader of the celebration
140 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
is to furnish unlimited quantities of alcohol to the
participants. It also means financial ruin to the
person chosen, and frequently puts him so deeply
in debt that he is years in getting square with the
world again. The system could not be better
adapted to keeping the Indian in a condition of
absolute servitude to the land-owner. If by strict
economy and attention to business the poor fellow
gets any money ahead, the landlord will take it
from him unjustly and forcibly, the priest will get
it for masses, burials, baptisms, marriages, and
feasts, or the government will get it for rum.
Until recently missionary effort in La Paz had
not been directed to the Indian. In 1907, at the
urgent request and with the financial assistance of
the Bolivian Government, the M. E. Mission
Board established a school, the American Institute
of La Paz, which includes all the grades from kin¬
dergarten to college entrance. Another school
was started in Cochabamba by the same Society.
Through the boarding department, these schools
have received students from all over the country.
I met one boy who had come seven days’ journey
on mule back to the railroad station where he could
take the train for La Paz in order to attend the
American school.
Government support was discontinued because
of the depletion of the Bolivian treasury, but the
schools have continued as a purely mission enter¬
prise and have acquired a remarkable prestige and
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
141
influence throughout Bolivia. I found no educated
Bolivian who did not know of them, and no one
who did not speak of them in terms of highest
respect. What these institutions have meant in
terms of Christian influence and character forma¬
tion to the hundreds of young men and women of
the well-to-do class who have passed under the
influence of the devoted Christian educators can
never be adequately estimated.
It would be hard to find a less denomination¬
ally selfish project than these Methodist mission
schools. They are endeavouring to invest the lives
of the missionaries in the community for the
benefit of the young people coming to them for an
education, and for the uplift of all with whom they
come in contact. The missionaries have shown
what Christian homes should and can be. One
young man who had been brought to a knowledge
of the truth told me that what had influenced him
for Christ was the home life of these teachers.
They have shown that young people can meet to¬
gether for helpful social intercourse, and healthful
recreation. In Cochabamba especially, the mis¬
sionaries are looked to for advice in the matter of
getting up parties and social gatherings and they
have influenced greatly the social life of the youth
of the well-to-do, by the introduction of ath¬
letics and outdoor sports, a thing before unknown.
They have been a significant factor in instilling
higher ideals into the minds of the young. I
142 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
found both teachers and pupils of the schools in
La Paz and Cochabamba, attending the Sunday
services of the Canadian Baptist Mission. There
is the most cordial relationship between the work¬
ers of the two Societies.
But, these schools are for the children of the
wealthy, and are largely self-supporting as far as
running expenses are concerned : what have they to
do with the Indian? Simply this: these conse¬
crated young American teachers have seen the
great untouched mass of Indians for whom no¬
body has ever cared and for whom nothing has
ever been done. Their hearts have gone out to
them and they are offering themselves for Indian
work. I have seen the survey and outline of work
as laid down by them for the activities of the next
ten years. The program is inclusive and comprises
besides provision for medical and evangelical
work, an educational system that shall reach out
to remote Indian centers and head up in the pres¬
ent schools in La Paz and Cochabamba. That the
missionaries themselves believe in the program is
evidenced by the fact that Mr. Frank Beck, Di¬
rector of the American Institute in La Paz, has
just returned to the home land to study medicine
in order that he may return as one of the mission¬
ary physicians called for by the plan. The whole
scheme if carried out as planned will bring to fru¬
ition the previous work of Christian education,
because it will furnish an outlet for the Christian
activities of those of the ruling class who have the
BEAUTIFUL LA PAZ
143
interests of the Indian at heart, and an opportunity
to develop native leadership.
The Canadian Baptists located in La Paz are
approaching the Indian problem from a different
angle. Some time ago, through a bequest of a
friend of missions, they came into possession of a
large estate on Lake Titicaca together with the
Indians living on it. A couple of missionary
ladies, one of them a nurse, have gone out to live
on the farm and have begun to study the language.
A practical missionary farmer is expected soon
from Canada. The missionaries are finding that
the possession of land together with the legal cus¬
tody of human beings carries its own peculiar re¬
sponsibilities. Prayerfully facing the problem as
they are doing, they may be able to solve it not only
satisfactorily to themselves, but in such a way that
their experience may be of value to others who
really wish to help their Indian serfs to indepen¬
dent manhood.
In December, 1921, Mrs. Irving Whitehead,
who had just been assigned by Bishop Oldham to
work among the Indians in La Paz, took me to
see the little building she had rented. Then, the
question that was uppermost in my mind was:
Will the Indian of La Paz respond to this effort
about to be made in his behalf? Now, the ques¬
tion that repeats itself is : Why has not the attempt
been made before? The response has been pa¬
thetic in its wistful eagerness. The school room
has been full from the first, not only during the
144 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
day, but at night with classes for adults, and for
Sunday services as well. Mothers have brought
their children, serious little Indian toddlers have
come bringing on their backs the baby brother or
sister for whom they were responsible. The day
I last visited the school, four babies were playing
on the floor while the older brother or sister that
had brought them was studying. One of the
babies started crying and the brother immediately
left his book and went out doors with the baby to
remain until it was again quiet — a condition Mrs.
Whitehead has found it necessary to impose.
At the request of Rev. H. E. Wintemute, the
missionary in charge, I spoke one Sunday night in
the Baptist Church in La Paz. As I was speaking
an Aymara Indian came in and sat down. I told
in simple Spanish the story of the American Bible
Society, how we had just published the New
Testament in Quechua and that we hoped some
day to have the Gospels in Aymara. The old man
was waiting as I passed out. He approached, took
my hand in both of his, said in broken Spanish :
“ Your word was very sweet to ’me,” and turning
went his way. Never have words of appreciation
stirred me so. I leave the reader to imagine my
emotions. May the workers be forthcoming and
may Divine Wisdom be granted the individuals
and societies who are seriously facing the problem
of winning the inhabitants of this great Indian
city for Christ.
X
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
IN size, Cochabamba is the second city of
Bolivia. It is the center of the life of the
Quechua Indian as La Paz is of that of the
Aymara. Cochabamba is about twenty-four hours’
journey from La Paz by rail. Sleeping accommo¬
dation on the train is good, and a very satisfactory
meal of several courses can be secured in the din¬
ing car for about seventy-five cents American
money. The first part of the journey is along the
tableland to the bustling mining town of Oruro
where we change from the main line that continues
to Antofagasta, Chile, to the branch road that goes
over the mountain rim into the broken and rugged
eastern slope of the Andes and taps the rich valley
of Cochabamba.
The rarefied night air of the plateau is cold and
piercing. The continuous struggle of the inhabi¬
tants for a mere existence renders them morose,
sullen, and apathetic. As we contemplate the
poverty-stricken Indians, men, women, and chil¬
dren, with their weather-beaten, bronzed, features,
and calloused feet, cultivating their little patches
of barley or potatoes, herding small flocks of sheep
145
146 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
or llamas, or guiding pack trains of the latter
across the plateau, we note the monotony of the
treeless landscape dotted with cheerless clay hovels,
and shut in by bleak mountains, and do not wonder
at the exclamation of a native author: “ If the sur¬
rounding barren and miserable hills furnish any
inspiration, it is the desire to escape, to get away,
and the farther the better.” The inhospitable char¬
acter of the elements by which he is surrounded,
finds itself reflected in the irresponsive character
of the Aymara Indian. His disposition must be
warmed by the persistent shining of the sun of
disinterested kindness to which he has hitherto
been a stranger, before he will expand and be¬
come susceptible to outside influence of any sort
whatever.
The Quechua Indian of the Cochabamba Valley
is of a different type. Five thousand feet lower,
Cochabamba has the temperate climate of Mexico
City. The valley is fertile, and its soil yields read¬
ily to cultivation. Corn is the principal article of
diet, taking the place of the barley and frozen po¬
tatoes of the tableland. Life here is not such a
serious struggle for existence. The dweller of this
region has more leisure, is more sociable, musical,
expansive, generous, and accessible, than is the in¬
habitant of the cold highlands. He is also quicker
of intellect and less stolid and apathetic, though he
does not have the sturdiness of physique of the
latter.
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
147
Shortly after leaving Oruro we commence the
ascent of the rim of the plateau, apparently a low-
lying range of hills. As soon as we cross the
divide, and begin to descend by one of the multi¬
tudinous steep-sided gorges or valleys that consti¬
tute the higher portion of the Amazon basin, we
are impressed by the immensity of the mountain
masses, down the sides of which the railroad has
been built to the lower altitudes, and by the audac¬
ity of the engineers that bring the train out onto
the very edge of a deep abyss, the bottom of which
lies hundreds of feet below, then by zigzagging
down its sides convey you nearly to the level of the
rushing stream below. The stream descends, how¬
ever, at a much greater angle than the grade of the
road, and we soon find ourselves far above it again,
only to repeat the zigzagging process of reaching
the lower level. Soon we are thousands of feet
below the top of the divide from which we started.
From this side, the mountains no longer look like
low-lying hills, but the towering masses of rock
that they really are, thrusting their dizzy heights
heavenward, intercepting the sun, and shortening
the day itself by bearing aloft the encircling
horizon.
The instability of it all impresses one. Short
shrift to any work of man that thwarts these
seaward-moving mountains. If the process of
erosion seems to be infinitely slow on the western
side of the Andes where there is no rainfall, on the
148 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
eastern slopes the contrary is the case. When pur¬
chasing our ticket at the station, we noticed an
announcement that the railroad would not be re¬
sponsible for accidents which might occur to per¬
sons or property during the trip. This was because
of the great frequency of landslides between Oruro
and Cochabamba, rendering the road unsafe during
the rainy season. As we made the descent to the
Cochabamba valley, there was everywhere evidence
of the instability of these great masses of rock,
ready again to start on their way to sea level as
soon as the rains should begin. During the dry
season the rock on the surface is in a comparatively
stable condition, but the steep slopes of the moun¬
tains are in a constant state of disintegration from
the action of cold, heat, and moisture. As soon as
the rains begin, therefore, the streams that were
clear, and low almost to the point of drying up ex¬
cept where fed by melting glaciers, become rushing
torrents of mud, rolling boulders and stones along
their beds, grinding them in the process into mud
and silt to be deposited later in the Amazon river
delta thousands of miles away.
Sometimes the heavy rains in the higher alti¬
tudes precipitate such quantities of water into the
valleys converging to form these rivers, that the
water rushes down the river bed like an advancing
wall several feet high, sweeping everything before
it. At other times combining landslides form
rivers of mud and stone that fill the valley from
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
149
side to side to a depth of several feet, forming an
irresistible mass that overcomes everything in its
path. The lower part of the town of Arque
through which we pass was completely covered by
such a flood of mud and stones a few years ago.
Again, this year (1923) another large portion of
the town was destroyed by flood and landslide.
The author of the grammar that I secured for the
study of Quechua was drowned with his wife, as
they were caught by a flood of water rushing down
a dry river bed. These floods often overtake trav¬
elers without previous warning, since the moun¬
tains where the rains occur are out of sight of the
people of the steep-sided valleys. All traveling in
this part of Bolivia, to be unaccompanied by grave
danger, must be done during the dry season.
After the close of the rains, what were rushing
torrents again become small, clear, mountain
brooks, meandering along on top of a bed of sand,
cobblestone, and rocks, products of erosion at rest
during the dry season. These almost diy valley
bottoms may well be called rock rivers, since they
are composed of rock that with each rainy season
will be carried another stage of the long journey to
the far-away Atlantic.
Though the rainfall is abundant, this section of
the Andes is devoid of forest and there is no cur¬
tain of verdure to screen the action of the elements.
Every valley is fed by tributary valleys and gorges
whose sides are in a constant state of disintegra-
150 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
tion. At the foot of every cliff, taluses form and
at the mouth of every gorge there are left, at the
close of the rainy season, fan-like deltas, the in¬
clined angle of which indicates the rapidity of the
streams by which they were formed. Through the
deltas run in a deep cut the apparently harmless
streams that built them up. Indian homes, ham¬
lets, and even villages and towns, are built upon
these deltas, and all will go well and prosperously
for a few years, when some day as the result of a
sudden downpour of rain the channel will fill with
heavy material, the torrent overflow its bed and
cut a new channel for itself, carrying everything
before it. Many an Indian hamlet and more than
a score of villages are thus carried away annually
on the eastern slope of the Andes in Bolivia.
When to this are added the frequent avalanches
when fields and whole mountainsides slip down
into the valley below, it is easily seen what a con¬
stant battle with the elements is forced upon all
who live in this section, and what constant vigilance
is required to keep a roof over one’s head when the
foundations may be swept away at any time.
As we approach Cochabamba, the valley widens.
Orchards and fields appear, bearing all the fruits of
the temperate zone. Singing birds abound and fill
the air with their melodies. The nest of the oven
bird is seen on trees and telegraph poles along the
line. The people at the railroad stations become
smiling and sociable in their attitude. The lan-
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
151
guage throughout this thickly-populated valley is
Quechua. Spanish is seldom heard. The language
of childhood, even of the sparse white population,
is that of the native Indian, hence the importance
of the translation of the Gospel message into the
language of the people, to be printed side by side
with Spanish, the official language of the country.
Because of the work being done on the New
Testament in this dialect of the Quechua, I was
anxious to visit Mr. George Allan, of the Bolivian
Indian Mission, under whose supervision the trans¬
lation was being made. Hence I gladly accepted
Mr. Allan’s invitation to visit the Mission Head¬
quarters at San Pedro.
The journey from the railroad station at Arque
to San Pedro is about fifty miles’ ride over a moun¬
tain trail. Mr. H. C. McKinney met me at the
station with the news that he had engaged a mule
and guide to take me to San Pedro and that we
would start about daylight the following morning.
Would I be willing to speak to the people that
night? Of course, I was only too glad of the op¬
portunity. Although the meeting had not been an¬
nounced, the congregation was very easily gath¬
ered. In the yard back of the hall, there were sus¬
pended from the branch of a tree two pieces of
steel rail of different lengths. Beating upon these
called a congregation together and filled the build¬
ing in a short time.
Mr. and Mrs. McKinney are quite musical.
152 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
They have had the Quechua songs and choruses
printed in large type on a scroll which they hang
up on the wall back of the reading-stand, and
teach them to the children during the services. I
wish the reader could have heard the children of
that congregation sing the Gospel songs and
choruses in Quechua, Mr. McKinney leading and
his wife accompanying on the baby organ. They
sang so heartily, so well, and with so much ex¬
pression that one was carried away by their en¬
thusiasm and had a vision of the possibilities of
multiplying such congregations throughout Indian
America.
My guide appeared as promptly as could have
been expected in the morning. While we did not
get started at daylight, it was not very long after
that I was leaving the town of Arque mounted on
a bay mule with black head and neck, the Indian
running before on foot. After striking off down
the rock bed of the river, we turned to the right
and followed up a tributary stream-bed for about
twenty minutes, then the trail led directly up a
steep mountain spur. Up, up, we zigzagged at an
almost unbelievable angle until in a few minutes
we were hundreds of feet above the stream, near
enough to perpendicular so that all the shrubs and
plants seemed to lean up the mountain side in order
to keep from falling over the precipices. On the
curves of the trail around the end of the spur
when the mule’s head projects over a straight drop
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
153
of fearful depth and the first turn of her body
brings half of the rider over the same precipice,
there is, at first, an almost irresistible tendency to
lean to the side of the trail toward the mountain.
Soon, however, one learns the futility of this;
and, with increasing confidence in the surefooted¬
ness of the animal, retains his seat as contentedly
and unconcernedly as though in a luxurious obser¬
vation car, with this difference that he is now a
part of the scenery of which he would be but an
observer from the car window. Surely this adds
spice to the joy of living.
No American mule as far as I know ever fol¬
lows the principle of the driver in the story, who,
when asked how near he could drive to a precipice
without falling over, said that he always kept as
far away from the edge as possible. The mule
always keeps to the very outer edge of the trail, as
far away from the mountain wall as possible. The
reason may be that when carrying cargoes, if the
load hits the mountain, the rebound is likely to
carry him over the precipice — I have seen such
accidents — or it may be sheer mulishness. Having
discovered the desire of the rider to keep as far
away as possible, the animal determines to have his
own way in this particular. The sooner one ac¬
cepts the situation and remains perfectly at ease,
the better for his peace of mind. At any rate the
outside of the path has its advantages. One is
able to look straight down, and it gives him some-
154 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
what the sensation of riding in an aeroplane sus¬
pended between earth and sky.
After we had reached the apparent summit of
the ridge we traveled along the rising crest. The
trail sometimes led along the top so that we could
see both valleys, but it oftener kept to one side or
the other avoiding the highest points. The Indian
kept comparatively near on foot; in order to rest
the mule, I would frequently dismount and walk
up the steepest parts of the ascent. On either side
of us was a steep valley and we looked down upon
the tops of the shepherds’ huts below, and into the
rock-inclosed folds, down into the “ V ’’-shaped
valleys beyond which the field of vision embraced
peak after peak of steep mountain masses, on many
of which fields were cultivated on sides so pre¬
cipitous that one wondered how the labourers man¬
aged to maintain a footing while cultivating and
harvesting the crop.
Our first stopping place was at a sheep ranch
where we secured fodder for the mule. The ranch
foreman ordered some eggs and potatoes fried for
me. The servant also boiled water for tea. I try
to avoid drinking unboiled water when traveling
in these countries unless sure that it comes from an
uncontaminated source. The foreman and his lit¬
tle son understood Spanish, but all of the help, in¬
cluding my Indian guide, spoke Quechua only.
The little boy told me he was home on vacation,
that he was attending school in Cochabamba, and
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
155
knew the missionaries there very well. He thought
they had the best school in Bolivia.
After our rest the foreman refused to take any
pay for food for man or animals, saying that he
was glad to be of service to any friend of the mis¬
sionaries of San Pedro. He then brought out from
the house a little girl three or four years old,
flushed with fever, and having a badly coated
tongue. He thought she had scarlet fever. Could
I do anything for her? All that I had with me in
the way of medicine was some three-grain tablets
of cascara sagrada. I gave some of these to him,
telling him to give her one at regular periods until
they produced the desired effect. For this he
seemed very grateful.
The second part of the day’s journey was even
more fascinating than the first. Beyond the sheep
ranch the trail was unknown to the Indian. The
manager explained to me in Spanish, and to the
guide in Quechua, the trails we were to follow.
When we came to the point where we had been
directed to leave the main trail in order to reach
the next valley, I should have been lost without the
sagacity of the Indian. He was able to follow the
trail over the apparently bare rock. I was not con¬
vinced that he was right, and followed him rather
doubtfully until we came upon a well-beaten track
again. We came out onto the new trail near to the
starting point of a stream flowing in the opposite
direction from those we had left, although all the
156 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
streams in this section finally reach the sea through
the Amazon.
A little farther down the trail a beautiful fox
jumped into the road ahead of us, ran along a little
way, then turned and looked at us, giving a broad
side view as if to show oft* his flaming red fur and
black-tipped tail. As we rounded the spur at the
curve around which the fox had disappeared into
the valley below, a pair of immense condors flew
up, the only ones I have ever seen. I watched them
as their gigantic forms grew smaller in the dis¬
tance until they appeared but small specks against
the shadow of some distant thunderheads.
We followed down this tiny mountain stream
until it became a wide, rocky river bed, though
with little water at this season of the year, since
we were just at the close of the dry season. Then
we turned up a tributary stream and followed it
to its very beginning in a spring in a llama pasture,
in a gulley cut out of a mossy sod. A few minutes
more and we were at the summit of the ridge and
a wonderful sight presented itself. We were on
the top of a high range which overlooked a field
of mountain tops stretching in every direction as
far as eye could reach. The green of the sparse
vegetation mingling with the reddish colour of the
rocks reflecting the after glow of the sun just dis¬
appearing over the horizon, made a sight long to
be remembered as one of the experiences of a
lifetime.
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
157
From this point there was a long descent, and it
was considerably after dark when we reached the
Indian village of Torocari, where are stationed Mr.
and Mrs. Powlison, of the Bolivian Indian Mis¬
sion. At first, I could find no one who understood
Spanish from whom to inquire the residence of
the Powlisons. Nor could we make anyone under¬
stand whom we wanted. Finally, I asked for the
man who treated the poor when they were sick. A
woman then started us in the right direction. We
went past the house, however, and had to be set
right by a young man we met who understood
Spanish. We were given a hearty welcome by
Mr. and Mrs. Powlison, whom I found living in a
native adobe house like those of their Indian
neighbours.
The trail on which we set out the following
morning from Torocari to San Pedro is down one
of the rock river beds of which I have spoken, until
just opposite the town, which is located part way
up the mountain side. The scenery was impressive
along this river winding between the spurs of gi¬
gantic piles of rock. The stream of water was
small and clear and meandered from side to side,
down the inclined plain, in which it had cut a
course for itself during the long dry season.
Of intense interest are these beginnings of the
sources of the mighty Amazon. At the point from
which we started, the path led between immense
boulders. As we advanced, these diminished in
158 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
size and became more rounded. The valley had
also widened out, and tributaries to the rocky bed
were to be seen all along the way. They ranged in
size from the small talus, at the foot of almost per¬
pendicular cliffs, to the more or less steep deltas
opening into the main valley from the mountain
gorges. The sides of these gorges were lined with
rocks and loosened boulders waiting for the com¬
ing rains to start them again on their journey to
the sea.
I was hurrying along for two reasons; first, I
wanted to reach San Pedro in time to have a short
rest before the noon meeting, then I was becoming
horribly sunburned and wanted to get out of the
glare of the river bed as soon as possible. My
mule was a good walker and was easily urged into
a trot along the smooth parts of the trail. So sure
was I of the way from the description given me
that I had left the Indian far behind, not antici¬
pating any need of him.
Finally, the mule became very thirsty, and tried
to drink every time we crossed the stream. Hith¬
erto I had left the care of the animal entirely to
the Indian, dismounting while he took off the
bridle and watered her. I had taken quite a liking
to the animal. She was so willing and surefooted
that I thought she deserved good treatment. In
my haste I decided not to wait for the Indian this
time but to water her myself. Accordingly I dis¬
mounted, took off the bridle, and, holding her by
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
159
the rawhide rope about the neck, let her drink all
she wanted. I then put my right hand through the
halter and, taking hold of the top of the bridle with
it, took the bit in my left, and started to put it in
her mouth. Suddenly she gave a jump, a wheel,
and a few twists of the head that wound the rope
three times around my wrist. Finding that she
could not get away, she reared and came at me
with forefeet and teeth. In less time than it takes
to write it, I was on my back in the shallow water
with the mule on top of me, kneeling and biting
savagely every part she could reach, which was the
arms above the elbow and the shoulders. It took
all of my strength to keep my head up and my face
out of the way of her teeth.
It is hard enough to breathe at any time in an
altitude of 9,000 feet, and it seemed as though the
weight of the mule would crush my life out.
When I began to think I could stand it no longer,
she gave another spring and whirl, filled the air
fuller of feet than I cared to see it, in an attempt
to kick herself free and get away. We fell again,
this time with the mule kneeling somewhat across
me so that she did not so completely crush out my
breath as before. I was, however, just as helpless.
My knife was in my right pocket and I could not
get at it to cut the rope. It was impossible for me
to exert any force to try to throw the animal on
her side, and she continued savagely biting all the
while. Once she got my middle finger between
160 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
her teeth, and from the way they closed on it, I
thought that would be the last of that finger. I
watched, however, for the first indication of re¬
laxation in the grip and snatched my hand from
her mouth.
Meanwhile my strength was fast going. It not
only took my utmost strength to keep my face up
out of her reach, but it took all my will power to
keep from fainting. I knew that should I relax,
not only would she be able to get at my face with
her teeth, but that she would also be able to trample
and crush my body in her frantic efforts to get
away. The question that repeated itself in my
mind was : “ Is this the way the end is coming,
alone in the Upper Andes, in a fight with a fren¬
zied mule? ” I then thought of the promise I had
made to the Indians of Cuzco, to carry their appeal
to the people of the United States. I thought of
the wife that was waiting my return, and of the
children that still needed a father to help them to
prepare for life’s work, and I asked the heavenly
Father, for their sake, to send help in time. I also
cried out, as loud as my exhausted condition
would permit, for help, so that any person passing
would not think the mule was chewing a dead man.
Just as I seemed about to lose consciousness in
spite of every effort, the Indian came up with two
others. The mule was in the act of rising to make
another effort to get free. They were able to
seize and hold her, however, and when they had
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
161
released my hand from her neck I collapsed into a
gasping, groaning heap.
One of the Indians mounted the mule and hur¬
ried off to San Pedro for help; the other remained
by me with the guide. The hot sun became un¬
bearable, and the men supported me to the shade
of a nearby bush. They did so, one getting under
an arm on each side. When they had raised me to
my feet, it seemed incredible that I should find no
bones broken, nor any symptoms of internal in¬
jury. I lay for a while under the scant shade of
the shrub and the Indians brought me water from
the river. The heat becoming again unbearable, it
seemed as though I must get out of it somewhere,
so I asked them to support me along the road
toward San Pedro. This they did, one getting
under either arm as before. Just a few rods
ahead we rounded a curve and the town, on the
mountain side not a mile away, came into sight. I
also saw a man urging a mule along the river bed
toward us; and, with the knowledge that help was
on the way, collapsed again in the shade of a small
pepper tree.
Mr. George Allan was the first to arrive, fol¬
lowed by some of the young men of the mission,
one of whom brought a first-aid kit. They helped
me onto the mule, but I could not remain there.
Then two of the young men supported me in the
same way the Indians had done, and we started
again for the town. I shall never forget how far
162 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
away it looked. When we arrived at the foot of
the mountain, we found several of the young
ladies of the mission who had come to meet us.
The young men laid me down to rest again. So
weak and exhausted was I that I would have spells
of shivering like a person with ague. I must have
been a sight. My face was covered with blood
from a small cut under the right eyebrow, one on
the bridge of the nose, another behind the ear, that
had been inflicted by the mule’s teeth during the
first desperate struggle to get my face out of her
reach. I had on a union suit of khaki overalls that
had been loaned to me by one of the missionaries
of La Paz for the trip. My derby was as battered
and dirty as that of any tramp, from having been
under us in the water. While I was lying there,
one of the young ladies gave me water with a
spoon, while another began to wash the blood and
dirt from my face. The latter remarked that they
could begin to see what I looked like. I asked if
she thought I would be handsome when she got
through with me but she would not commit her¬
self. The first time I saw my own face in the glass,
I did not wonder at her unwillingness to express an
opinion, for it was badly sunburned, scratched, and
superficially grazed. After further rest we started
slowly up the hill. I did not have much farther to
walk, however, for one of the young men brought
a cot on which they laid me and carried me the rest
of the way to the mission home.
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
163
I have never before been so glad to find myself
between sheets. Mr. Shakeshaft, one of the mis¬
sionaries who had spent some time as a nurse in
the homeopathic hospital in London, took me in
charge. From elbow to elbow over the shoulders
and around the back of the neck the whole surface
was perfectly black. There were very few places,
however, where the skin was broken, though the
muscles were terribly bruised. The tough over-
ailing had prevented the teeth reaching my flesh.
The finger gave me the most pain, for here the
teeth had reached the bone and it became infected.
I had always believed in medical missions, but
had never had such a vivid experience of their
value. Here I was, fifty-two miles from a railway
station and more than a hundred miles from a
doctor. What would have been the results to me
from this accident, without the help of the mission¬
aries? Not only at this time, when I was so weak
I could not stand, did I appreciate the help, but
thereafter as well. At the stations at which I
called on my return journey they were able to
dress my wounds and irrigate and dress the in¬
fected finger. All of the Indians living in this
section are just as far from a doctor as I was, in
many sections much farther. Even those Indians
living in the cities of the Andean region do not
have medical aid and are even more ignorant of
how to care for themselves than I. No wonder
they love the missionaries who come to their help
1 64 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
with medicines, bandages, and modern antiseptics.
In spite of my exhausted physical condition as
a result of the accident, I was able to accomplish
that for which I had come to San Pedro, namely,
to get first-hand information regarding the work
of the Bolivian Indian Mission, and the need and
field for the Quechua New Testament, then being
brought out by the Bible Societies. It was a pleas¬
ure to meet Mr. Barron, the native helper and
translator. Mr. Barron, like many others, while
not considering himself an Indian, uses Quechua
in his home by preference. His own attention
was first called to the Gospel by having a Bible
portion offered to him in the Quechua language.
He later secured a New Testament in Spanish, and
both he and his wife were brought to the knowl¬
edge of the Lord through the reading and study of
the Bible, and by seeking Him in prayer in their
own home. Mr. Barron himself is an example of
the power of God’s Spirit working through the
printed Word to change a man from a drunkard
and wife-beater into an earnest Christian worker
devoting all of his time to seeking to spread the
good news among his fellow-countrymen.
The workers of this mission are all very en¬
thusiastic over the help that the parallel column
New Testament is going to be in the evangelisation
of Quechua-speaking Bolivia. In all this region
everybody speaks Quechua. But few understand
Spanish, still fewer can read, and no books are
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
165
available in their own language. Mr. Allan has
devised a simple phonetic alphabet by using the
Spanish letters with a few diacritical signs to
represent sounds not found in that language, so
that anyone who can read Spanish can now read
the Quechua also. This New Testament will be
valuable to all Christian workers, in that it will
enable them to acquire the Quechua vocabulary and
to read the Scriptures to the people in their own
tongue. It will also be valuable to all Quechua-
speaking people who have learned to read Spanish
because it will give them the Gospel in their mother
tongue instead of through a foreign medium, and
at the same time it will help the people of the sec¬
tion to acquire Spanish, the official language of
their country. The only other New Testament in
any of the many indigenous languages of South
America is the one published in the Guarani of
Paraguay and Southern Brazil. Much remains to
be accomplished before the Indians of South and
Central America can hear the Good News read in
their own tongue. God bless and prosper the de¬
voted workers who are consecrating their lives to
this hitherto neglected task.
After a stay of three days, I started on the re¬
turn trip from San Pedro to Arque, on Wednesday
afternoon, planning to make it by easy stages, rest¬
ing Thursday in Torocari, then passing Saturday
and Sunday in Arque, and leaving on Monday’s
train for Ta Paz. The rains had been delayed,
166 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
they might come at any time, and in my weak
and bruised condition, I felt I had better hasten
back while the roads were at their best. The guide
demurred at starting in the afternoon. He said it
looked like rain and it would be better to wait till
morning. When we got down to the river bed he
called my attention to the fact that the stream was
rising as indicated by its increased muddiness and
the floating sticks and leaves, and suggested turn¬
ing back. I, however, told him that we would
press on for a time and if it looked too much like
rain we would return. When we had proceeded a
little farther he pointed out to me the rain that was
falling up a side valley near a village we were to
pass. I told him we would proceed to the village;
that if it rained by the time we reached it, we
would stay there over night. When we had
reached the village the shower had passed between
us and San Pedro. I then said we would continue
our journey and that if caught in the rain we
would stop at some houses that I had seen further
up-stream. He consented rather reluctantly, but
helped me to urge the mule along. I was anxious
to pass, if possible, the half-way point between
San Pedro and Torocari where the valley was very
narrow, before sufficient rain should fall to cause
the stream to rise and make it impassible. When
we had reached the houses indicated, the threaten¬
ing storm had passed behind us, just sprinkling a
few large drops on the stones of the river bed
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
167
where we were. There being no further indica¬
tion ahead of immediate rain, we pushed on to
Torocari.
I was very cordially received by the Powlisons
and spent the following day with them, taking a
complete rest, and getting information regarding
their work. Friday morning we started long be¬
fore daylight, and saw the sun rise from the frost-
covered top of the mountain referred to previ¬
ously as a llama pasture. On our return to the
sheep ranch, upon inquiry regarding the little girl,
we found she was much better. After a short rest
we again set out, and reached the top of the moun¬
tain overlooking the valley in which Arque is situ¬
ated, in time to see the early afternoon train on
which I had arrived from La Paz the week before,
pass down the valley on its way to Cochabamba.
As we neared Arque, going along the bed of the
river we heard a noise on the spur above us of
small stones falling down the mountain side. My
mule jumped and broke into a run. Simultane¬
ously the Indian started to run, shouting to me to
do the same. This was a new experience. Look¬
ing back I saw the cause of the terror of man and
animal. A few pieces of an accumulation of rock
debris on the mountain side had lost their equi¬
librium and had fallen into the valley. These
pieces of rock might have been the beginning of
an avalanche that would have buried us under a
pile of disintegrated rock. The avalanche would
168 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
surely come with the beginning of the rain; but for
the present these few small pieces were all that fell.
We reached Arque as the missionary family
were at the evening meal, and found there Mrs.
Allan with a new missionary who had come via
La Paz on her way to San Pedro, also Mr. and
Mrs. Lowson, of Australia, who had been spending
some time visiting the different stations of the
mission. Mr. McKinney dressed my wounds and
I retired for the night almost immediately. I was
awakened by a downpour of rain and the noise of
the rushing river. The rains had begun, and I
was more than glad that I had not taken the advice
of the Indian to delay my start from San Pedro.
After spending Saturday and Sunday in Arque,
and hearing again the enthusiastic singing of the
Gospel songs in Quechua by the children, I took
the Monday train for La Paz.
During my trips into the interior of Bolivia I
have been amply repaid for the time spent in study¬
ing the simple Quechua grammar. I have always
found the guides companionable and responsive to
any attempts at communication. It has been an
agreeable pastime to try out on them my own
Quechua vocabulary, and to add to it words I
could catch from their replies; this was especially
the case with the guide who took me to San Pedro.
Though he did not speak Spanish, quite a friend¬
ship sprang up between us aided by my attempts
to increase my vocabulary. The names of some of
SUNDAY SCHOOL, ARQUE, BOLIVIA.
QUECHUA-SPEAKIXG HALF-CASTE CHILDREN (Above)
AYMARA INDIAN BOYS PASTURING CATTLE AND
GATHERING REEDS IN MARSHES OF LAKE
TITICACA (Below)
THE BOLIVIAN INTERIOR
169
the birds seen were not difficult to remember, being
imitations of the cries of the birds themselves. A
large bird with habits of the American flicker, but
about twice as large, was the “ yacayaca ” another
which I looked upon as the Bolivian mocking-bird
he called the “ chirichiri ” and still another, a
wader, that we saw in damp places, was the
“ yoqueyoque ”
When I said goodbye to the guide after several
days of companionship and imperfect communica¬
tion, during which he had looked after the welfare
of the animal, and my own when required, and had
saved my life in one instance although attacked and
bitten himself by the mule while so doing, it was
with a feeling of regret that, because of his lack of
knowledge of Spanish and my ignorance of his
own language, we had not been able to form a
closer acquaintance. We had however been able
to express ourselves, although imperfectly, in the
universal signs of helpfulness and goodwill.
XI
THE CRADLE OF THE INCAS
METROPOLIS, capital, and shrine, mother
of language, religion, learning, and law,
as well as of cities and colonies, was
Cuzco to the Inca Empire. It was the center from
which these efficient rulers extended their con¬
quests in every direction, builded extensive mili¬
tary roads, east to the coast, north to Quito, Ecua¬
dor, and south into Chile and the Argentine ;
supervised extensive irrigation systems, and ruled
the country better than it has ever been governed
since the Spanish Conquest. It was from Cuzco
also that radiated the influence of the religion of
the sun god, and from this center were sent out
the language teachers that did their work so well
that to this day “ runa simi ” the “ speech of
humans,” as they still proudly call it, is the tongue
of all the mountain region and central plateau from
Quito to Chile except in the section occupied by the
sturdy Aymaras who, though subdued, never sur¬
rendered the speech of their fathers. It is esti¬
mated that Quechua in its slightly differing dialects
is spoken by more than 3,000,000 people in Ecua¬
dor, Peru and Bolivia, and Aymara by but 500,000.
170
CRADLE OF THE INCAS
171
Not only do rivers, cities, and mountains from
Ecuador to Northern Argentine bear evidence to
this day of former Inca rule, in the same way as
memorials of former Indian languages are to be
found in such geographical names in North Amer¬
ica, but unlike North America, these objects of
nature re-echo today in the interior the same
sounds spoken by the same race whose language,
though enriched, has been but little altered by 400
years’ contact with Spanish. Cuzco (“ the navel ”)
is still famous not only for its ruined temples and
fortresses where outraged heathendom made its
last stand against Christian (?) greed and perfidy,
but as a center where the Quechua language is still
to be found in its greatest purity, and where it has
been least influenced by the language of the
conqueror.
Although but 360 miles in a direct line from
Lima, the present capital of Peru, it is a journey
of five days by the quickest route; two days by sea
to Mollendo, two days by rail to the railroad junc¬
tion at Juliaca, or to Puno on Lake Titicaca, if one
prefers to pass the night there. Another day’s
travel takes us into the center of one of the most
interesting and fascinating regions of the western
world ; fascinating because of its history, legends
and archaeological attractions; interesting because
of its being the living grave of a throttled race who
have held tenaciously to their customs, supersti¬
tions and language, and who are beginning again
172 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
to thrill with the sensation of race consciousness,
and to feel that extermination would be better than
the long-drawn-out torture of which they are now
the victims.
The first part of the road from Puno to Cuzco
is along the central plain which was the former
lake bed when the present body of water, now
about the size of Cake Erie, was a great inland sea.
This lake bed forms the present elevated plateau,
and is surrounded by apparently low-lying moun¬
tains. I say, apparently low-lying, because they
are really towering peaks. Our present elevation
is 13,000 feet above sea level, which makes these
stupendous masses appear comparatively low. As
we approach the mountains at the edge of the
plateau, former shore lines are noted on the en¬
closing slopes.
The day’s ride is a long, hard one, twelve hours’
run over a rough road in uncomfortable cars with
low-backed seats. As we climb the mountain bar¬
rier which separates the tableland of Lake Titicaca
from the basin of the Amazon, we note the
dwindling of the small river along the valley of
w^hich we are traveling until it becomes but a
trickling stream. At the summit of the divide, we
pass between two snow-clad peaks, the melting
snows of which form the origin of the stream we
have been following. Someone had made a small
mud dam across the railroad ditch at the highest
point. The water on one side of this dam flows
CRADLE OF THE INCAS
173
into Lake Titicaca from whence it is carried
through the outlet of this body of water, the
Desaguadero River, to evaporate later in the great
salt marshes in the interior of Bolivia. The water
on the other side of the little dam is starting on its
long road to the ocean and forms the beginning of
one of the many tributaries of the mighty Amazon.
For the greater part of the remainder of the day
we follow this little stream until it becomes a
rushing river.
The first part of the journey is through a
pastoral country. We see great mountain valleys
where large flocks of sheep, llamas, and alpacas are
feeding in the care of Indian shepherds. Fre¬
quently the llamas feeding on the dizzy heights
look like moving specks in the distance. As we
begin the descent, and throughout the day, the
character of the agriculture being carried on indi¬
cates the change of climate with the decreasing
altitude. The first cultivated crops seen are small
patches of barley and potatoes, then wheat and peas
appear ; later, corn, and, finally, a few of the
prickly pear cacti indicate that we are reaching a
warmer region.
The people of the tableland and higher elevations
where the country is pastoral, live in isolated,
grass-thatched adobe or stone huts, in the vicinity
of which are the walled enclosures for the flocks.
As we descend to the agricultural region, hamlets
and villages begin to appear, becoming larger and
174 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
more populous as we proceed. The village houses
are mostly small, one-roomed huts, built of stone
and adobe, covered with red brick tiles, and hud¬
dled together along narrow streets. The villages
follow each other in rapid succession. This
thickly-populated valley is without any evangelis¬
ing agency whatever.
The language spoken in Puno and on the table¬
land is largely Aymara. That spoken in this val¬
ley, in fact throughout all this region, is Quechua,
a language which has suffered but little change
throughout the centuries of contact with Spanish.
I had been casually studying the language ever
since my arrival in Lima, and had acquired a vo¬
cabulary of several scores of words. It was a
source of great pleasure to find, in testing out these
words on some of the Indians at the railway sta¬
tions, that I had acquired the correct pronunci¬
ation ; at least they understood what I meant when
I named certain articles in their own language.
They seemed surprised and pleased to find that an
American should be able to use any Quechua at all.
Hearing no Spanish whatever at the stations, we
realise that we have at last reached the very center
of Indian America, the seat of power from which
radiated the influence of this remarkable people,
the Incas or “ children of the sun,” whose laws,
customs, and monuments have been the wonder and
admiration of scholars. These customs and lan¬
guage are with us today, very little modified during
CRADLE OF THE INCAS
175
the time that has passed since the conquest, but the
people whom we see begging at the railway sta¬
tions, bowing under heavy burdens, digging up the
earth with rude hoes (because, here in Peru,
human labour is cheaper than that of animals) are
among the most abused, ill-treated, and oppressed
beings to be found upon the face of the earth.
With what mingled emotions do we direct our
journey towards Cuzco, this former center of a
ruined civilisation. The heart beats faster as we
think of the temerity of the little band of Spanish
adventurers who risked all and almost surpassed
the limits of human endurance in their determina¬
tion to accomplish their purpose and secure for
themselves and their monarch the fabulous riches
of the great unknown continent. The blood boils
with indignation at the treachery displayed and the
foul murders to which they descended, at the hy¬
pocrisy of the conniving priests in offering the In¬
dian monarch, Atahualpa, death by decapitation
instead of by burning if he would submit to the
ritual of baptism. With what depression and feel¬
ings of commiseration do we witness the present
degrading physical, moral, and spiritual slavery of
the Indian of today and the inhuman indifference
of the parasites, both clerical and lay, that fatten
at his expense. The mind is also filled with
ominous forebodings of possible future disaster
and bloodshed as a consequence of the development
of race consciousness on the part of the indigenes.
176 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
Exploited, oppressed, robbed, degraded, and brutal¬
ised to an almost unbelievable extent, the Indian
has become apathetic and hopeless in his misery
and helplessness. His one relaxation is the exhila¬
ration of getting beastly drunk on feast days and
other special occasions. His one comfort is the
cocaine extracted from the coca leaf which he
chews for its anaesthetic effect upon his hungry
stomach and weary muscles as well as for its dead¬
ening effect upon his mental sensibilities, enabling
him as it does to mechanically and unthinkingly ac¬
complish long and burdensome tasks with but little
nourishment. Both of these vices, coca chewing
and drunkenness, are encouraged by the ruling
class for the profit from the sales of rum and coca,
and because of their assistance in keeping the In¬
dian in his degrading position of ignorance, indebt¬
edness, and subjection. “ Those are my tractors,”
said a wealthy land-owner to me, pointing at the
same time to some Indian peons standing near,
“ and the coca-leaf is my gasoline. The)7 won’t
work without coca. With plenty of coca to chew
they will work from morning to night without
anything to eat.”
There are evidences, however, that the worm is
beginning to turn. Centuries of repressed resent¬
ment are finding vent in refusals to work and in
efforts at organisation to secure protection from
the central government in Eima. Most, if not all,
of the reported uprisings against local authority,
CRADLE OF THE INCAS
177
have, however, been unprovoked massacres of
harmless groups of Indians by the landlords and
local officials in their policy of intimidation. The
Indians have nowhere as yet denied the authority
of the Central Government. Not the least of the
emotions that stir one on a visit to the former
capital of the Incas are those arising from a con¬
sciousness of the fact that it is still not too late to
save this hardy race to civilisation, to Christianity,
and to the Kingdom of God by the Master’s pro¬
gram of loving ministry to their physical, mental,
and spiritual needs.
Bewildered, disorganised, and demoralised by
the suddenness of the attack of the Spaniards aided
by the supernatural animals, — the horses, — and the
thunder and lightning of their guns, the Indian ap¬
parently lost race consciousness and submitted, not
only to a domination, but to become the property
of the conquerors. The Indian is beginning to feel
that extermination and death would be preferable
to his present condition. He is beginning to find
himself and to develop a race consciousness. The
shedding of rivers of blood may be prevented and
possibly a war of extermination avoided by our
coming to the help of the Indian at this time, giv¬
ing him the education that is needed to fit him for
Christian citizenship and enable him to obtain his
rights by peaceful reform through the ballot box.
Cuzco is still marvelous for its many ruins,
skilfully wrought records in imperishable rock of
178 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
a departed past, indicating the wealth, power, and
skill of the builders of the Inca empire. In many
cases, modern buildings, both secular and ecclesi¬
astical, have been erected upon the foundations of
the original, destroyed edifices. In every case, the
part of the building which is of modern construc¬
tion is crude, imperfect, and puerile as compared
with the work of the Inca builders. Modern
masonry in Cuzco cannot compete with the skill
and accuracy with which the immense stones com¬
posing these ancient structures were fitted together.
The work was so neatly done without the aid of
mortar or cement, that, over hundreds of square
feet of wall-facing, one cannot find a crevice. At
the corner joints of some of these great blocks of
andesite, not even a needle can be introduced, so
closely matched are they. How it was done, by
what means these great stone blocks were brought
from the quarries and placed in their present posi¬
tion was long a mystery. We have stood in admi¬
ration before these silent witnesses of the past,
awed at the skill and accuracy of the builders
whose only historic records were kept by knots
tied on strings of different length and colour.
When the train arrived at Cuzco, there was a
rush of Indian boys and men into the car to secure
the baggage, similar to the rush at Puno, but the
crowd was a shade less disreputable than that of
the Lake-city. Rev. Wm. Milham and Dr. James
Buchanan were at the station to meet me. I
CRADLE OF THE INCAS
179
handed my baggage to them from the car window,
then made my way through the crowd to where
they stood. It seemed strange to see no coaches,
autos, nor drivers soliciting passengers. I soon
learned, however, that the streets of Cuzco, being
very roughly and unevenly paved with cobblestone,
are not adapted to any kind of passenger vehicle.
There was a small street car drawn by mules, but
this was so crowded that it was necessary for us to
walk to the mission quarters.
The altitude of Cuzco is 11,100 feet above sea
level, and I found that I must continue to move
slowly as I had not yet become sufficiently adapted
to the elevation to be able to exercise freely. Dr.
Buchanan very kindly took my arm to keep me
from stumbling in the dimly-lighted street, as we
walked over stones and through mud to Monjas-
pata, as the pretty mission plant in the suburbs of
Cuzco is called.
Cuzco is a mission station of the Evangelical
Union of South America, that was opened more
than twenty years ago by the Regions Beyond
Mission, under the direction of the late Dr. Grat-
ten Guiness, of London, England. The first mis¬
sionaries were driven out by an infuriated mob
seeking to kill them, instigated and led by the
priests. One of the missionaries, the Rev. John
T. Jarret, now at Cerete, Colombia, was conva¬
lescing from smallpox at the time. There was
no railroad, and these persecuted workers were
180 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
obliged to make their way overland, as best they
could, to Lima. Nothing daunted, they soon re¬
turned, this time not ostensibly as missionaries but
as English business men. They could thus claim
the legal protection of treaty rights. A mechanic’s
workshop was established, and the first photo¬
graphic studio in Cuzco was set up by Mr. F.
Peters. Public meetings for the preaching of the
Gospel were prohibited by law. The missionaries,
however, talked to little groups in their own places
of business and held religious services in their
homes.
Finally, medical assistance proved to be the
opening wedge and the breaker-down of the wall
of prejudice. It was started by the wife of one of
the missionaries offering to assist a lady in an
approaching confinement. Hitherto the ladies had
not been able to get into the homes of the people or
to reach the women in any way. From that time
on, doors began to open. There is hardly a house
in Cuzco that at one time or other in the last fifteen
years has not opened its doors to the devoted
nurses connected with this mission.
The mission was primarily established with the
idea of preaching the Gospel only. There are still
many of its supporters who look askance at medical
or educational missions. Yet I found in this quiet
suburb of Cuzco a very complete mission plant,
organised to meet the most pressing needs of the
community. The missionaries on the field have
CRADLE OF THE INCAS
181
seen the necessity of ministering to the physical
needs of those about them and are here carrying
on the three-fold activities of healing, teaching and
preaching. On a mission farm, located several
miles down the valley, Mr. Payne (an agricultural
missionary) is acting as preacher, builder, doctor
and surgeon, judge, and general grandfather to the
children in the farm orphanage and to the eighty
or ninety Indian families living on the immense
plantation.
In a section where scientific agriculture was un¬
known, where sugar cane is grown for the manu¬
facture of rum only, and where the labourers were
obliged to take one-half of their pay in rum, Mr.
Payne is undertaking to show what can be done
with the soil to make the country a better place in
which to live. In a treeless region he has planted
thousands of eucalyptus. A great deal of the
wheat was formerly lost by rust. Mr. Payne has
developed a rust-resisting wheat, and for some
years has supplied seed of this wheat to the gov¬
ernment of Peru. The average size of the pota¬
toes grown in the district was that of a hen’s egg.
Mr. Payne has shown that the size of these can be
greatly increased. By crossing the southern white
corn of the United States with the native Peruvian
maize, he has developed a corn which is considered
by experts to be the best known to agricultural
science. The first cross from rams brought from
British Colombia has shown that a sheep should
182 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
produce eight pounds of wool instead of three,
which is the average yield of the scrubs kept by
the Indian shepherds.
But to return to Cuzco : the missionary home is
in the center of a large compound and has separate
quarters for the missionary in charge, the doctor’s
family, the young lady nurses, and teacher, who
compose the mission staff. Two rooms are de¬
voted to a day school which is in charge of Mrs.
Milham assisted by Miss Joyce Baker, B.A. There
is a small dispensary, and recently three small
rooms have been added and set apart as a hospital
for lying-in patients. The day I arrived there were
five patients in these three rooms. A small adobe
school-house was being put up during my visit and
has since been completed.
The nurses, whose time is so fully occupied that
they are taking maternity cases only, expressed a
great deal of satisfaction with the hospital rooms.
It had been their invariable custom to present each
woman attended with a copy of the New Testa¬
ment, and when favourable opportunity offered to
engage in religious conversation or have prayer
with the patient. However, it was not like being
in their own home. Since they have had these
rooms to which they have been able to bring their
patients, they have adopted the custom of holding
an evening service with music, Bible reading, and
prayer. It was my privilege to lead this service
one night. The three rooms are so connected that
CRADLE OF THE INCAS
183
all of the patients can hear. The women greatly
enjoy the service, and the reader will fully realise
that such an occasion is a most favourable one for
a consecrated nurse to influence the lives of her
patients for good.
I spoke of the mission plant at Monjaspata as
being comparatively complete. Its completeness is
in its organisation on a small scale to serve the
community. Medical assistance for the poor given
by a competent physician and surgeon, obstetrical
care for maternity cases, with three rooms for
lying-in patients, a primary school in charge of
Mrs. Milham assisted by Miss Baker, a chapel for
religious services which also serves as a library and
reading room for young men certain afternoons
and evenings of the week, and a boys’ club, are all
well included in the activities of these self-effacing
workers.
The boys’ club had originated in the hospital.
One of the patients, a woman of the better class,
was so favourably impressed during her stay with
the missionary nurses that, when she learned they
would like to find a place where they could take
young boys in from the streets and teach them
something useful, she offered to let them have the
basement of her home. A boys’ club was formed
which had thirty members at the time of my visit.
The boys were learning wood carving and going
through such athletics as they could without appa¬
ratus. The club was a godsend for these boys,
184 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
since good, healthy sports are woefully lacking in
much of South America.
The work of these consecrated nurses, Misses
Pinn and Michell, deserves special mention. The
mission they are engaged in has done more in
Cuzco to break down the prejudice against Protest¬
ants than all other factors combined. They hold
themselves in readiness to respond to the call of
any woman in need, from the wife of the Governor
to that of the poorest Indian woman living under
the stoop of the steps of some building in a
crowded part of the city, where there is not room
to stand erect, and where everything must be done
in a crouching position, groping one’s way around
the other occupants of the den squatting on the
floor, with dogs and guinea pigs running under
foot. Those who are able, pay something for the
midwifery services, and the proceeds from such pa¬
tients are sufficient to pay the salaries of the mis¬
sionary nurses. Many are unable to pay, but all
receive the same care and prompt attention. While
their work has not been considered a mission to the
Indians, yet the nurses have treated so many Indian
women in their time of need, and so many other In¬
dians have been treated at the dispensary in Mon-
jaspata, and by Mr. Payne, on the farm, that the
people of the whole region have come to realise that
the missionaries are their friends, and they turn to
them in time of need, as the only white people from
whom they can expect a sympathetic hearing.
XII
THE MACEDONIAN CRY
BEFORE reaching Cuzco I had seen by the
papers that a large number of representa¬
tive Indians from all over the department
had gathered at the ancient capital, which is the
present capital of the Department, in an attempt
to make representation to the Government of the
wrongs they were suffering and to request protec¬
tion from the rapacity of the landlords and clergy.
Nothing had been accomplished, however, beyond
furnishing material for patriotic speeches for the
students of the University of Cuzco and furnish¬
ing additional evidence, if such were needed, that
the Indians were becoming more and more dis¬
satisfied with their present condition.
As we approached the mission quarters at Mon-
jaspata, the evening of my arrival, I saw some
Indians sitting in the school-room listening very
attentively to Miss Michell, one of the missionary
nurses, who was speaking to them through an in¬
terpreter. My interest was aroused and I asked
Mr. Milham who these Indians were. He told me
that a few of them had come at the invitation of a
friend to the regular meeting the night before. A
185
186 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
couple of Gospel choruses had been sung for them
in their own language, and they had heard the
Gospel for the first time. They had returned to¬
night, bringing a few others with them, and asked
if they might not hear the singing and the good
word again. I was all ears at once, and, forgetting
that the evening meal would probably be waiting
me, asked if I might not attend the meeting. No
objection being made, I entered the little school¬
room and took my seat among the listening
Indians.
Miss Michell was telling the Indians very simply
how to pray. They must talk to God just as they
would to a person, telling Him their needs. She
gave an example of answered prayer that had re¬
cently come into her own experience. She had
purchased a horse for the work of the mission. In
a few days it was stolen. She took the matter to
the Lord, saying : “ Father, we bought this horse
for your work because we thought you wanted us
to have it. If you do want us to have the horse
please help us to find it again.” In a short time
the thief attempted to sell the horse to a person
who recognised it and it was recovered for the mis¬
sion. The Indians followed with great interest the
simple illustrations given by Miss Michell, nodding
frequently to show that they understood.
Suddenly I became conscious that my obligations
to my hostess, Mrs. Milham, would not permit me
to remain longer, and asked if I might have a
THE MACEDONIAN CRY
187
word. I told the Indians that I wanted to say that
I loved them, that I had been thinking a great deal
about them and praying for them ever since leav¬
ing my home in Cristobal, that I had even begun to
study their language that I might get to understand
them better. I spoke to them of God, the loving
Father, and the Book He had given us ; told them
that I represented the Society that had translated
a part of God’s Book into their language; that the
cause of our troubles was disobedience; that the
secret of individual and national success in life
was to be found in obedience to the law of God;
that it should be the first business of every man to
find out the will of God that he might do it.
When I was through speaking, an old chief
arose, thanked me very effusively for my interest
in them, and asked me to convey their thanks to the
people who had sent me. Of course, I could not
understand the words ; they were interpreted to me
later. Then all the remaining Indians, ten or a
dozen, arose and simultaneously expressed the
same sentiments. I withdrew touched to the heart
by this immediate response to my first effort to
establish sympathetic relations with the Indians
of Peru.
Nature has done much for this whole Andean
region; man, little or nothing, except to pollute it
physically and morally. Many of the scenes of
mountain grandeur and pristine purity of snow¬
capped peaks must remain with the traveler for
188 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
life, as well as the scenes of dire misery, filth, and
squalour of the Indian population. I had spent a
part of my first morning in Cuzco on the front
balcony of the second story of the mission home,
gazing entranced at the beautiful panorama pre¬
sented by the valley before me. Range after range
of mountain-tops were to be seen until they faded
in the blue distance, approaching each other from
opposite sides of the valley with their lowering
crests overlapping near the line where the river
vallev cut across them. Athwart the center of the
hazy mountainous background was an immense,
elongated, snow-covered giant, that had hitherto
defied the attempts of the forces of erosion to
bring its top below the snow line. There it stood
— a sentinel guarding the valley. The scene was
magnificent and inspiring. One could envy the
missionaries at Monjaspata the privilege of such
an inspirational view before beginning the work
of each day.
While my mind was filled with the solemnity of
the emotions caused by the impressive mountain
scene, Dr. Buchanan called to ask if I would care
to take a walk with him to the market place. On
leaving the mission compound, we crossed a little,
rushing brook, beyond which was a vacant lot that
both men and women were using as a toilet, with
no sense whatever of the impropriety of so doing.
The stench from the open lot was something fear¬
ful. One was obliged to use one’s handkerchief to
THE MACEDONIAN CRY
189
filter, as it were, the polluted air and to keep the
nauseating flies from the mouth. The frequency
of typhoid needed no further explanation. There
was absolutely no need for this condition. The
city is on a good slope with the very best of natural
facilities for drainage, several streams having
their origin farther up the valley run with great
rapidity through the city in open ditches beside the
cobblestone-paved streets or down the center of the
street itself. No effort is made in any of these
municipalities of the interior to enforce cleanliness
or to inculcate the simplest rules either of hygienic
living or of common decency. If I had envied the
missionaries their magnificent view from the bal¬
cony of the home, I did not envy them the ordeal
of passing many times daily through this disgust¬
ing, loathsome, nauseating part of the way to and
from their work of love in the city.
All missionaries have learned the art of pressirg
visitors into service, and the representative of the
Bible Society likes to be commandeered. Of
course, I would speak to the Sunday School in the
morning, and at the church service in the evening,
but, “ How about the service in the jail on Sunday
afternoon ?” Miss Pinn asked me, hesitatingly.
She and Miss Michell had obtained access to the
city jail by offering to extract teeth for any prison¬
ers suffering with toothache. I was only too glad
of the opportunity to accompany them and to see
this phase of their work.
190 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
We passed the sentry at the street entrance of
the jail and through the narrow door into a grimy-
walled enclosure, where we found the jailer and a
few of the guard. He received us cordially, shak¬
ing hands all round. I had brought with me two
hundred copies of the centenary edition of the
Gospel of Luke. When I told him that I would
like to give one of the small books to each member
of the guard, he said that there were eighteen of
them and that he would take pleasure in seeing that
each man received a copy. I gave him the Gospels
for the men. A guard then accompanied us to the
barred entrance and unlocked the door in the iron
grating to which the prisoners were already press¬
ing in their eagerness to welcome the lady visitors.
The gate opened just widely enough to let us pass,
closed, and was locked behind us.
We immediately found ourselves in the midst of
a passing strange assembly; nearly three hundred
unkempt men, Indian, half-breed, and white,
crowded into a muddy compound, surrounded by
high walls in which were two tiers of small, damp
cells. The filth and discomfort of the prison, and
the repulsiveness of the unwashed, unkempt in¬
mates, was simply indescribable, yet here were two
educated and refined English ladies rejoicing be¬
cause they had succeeded in securing entrance to
such a place in the name of their Master.
How the prisoners crowded around us in their
eagerness to receive one of the little books! How
THE MACEDONIAN CRY
191
strange that these young ladies should be able to
circulate among such men with absolutely no sense
of fear. At first we gave the Gospels to only
those who demonstrated their ability to read, but,
finding that those who could not read were much
disappointed at not receiving a copy, I concluded
by giving out all I had with me, after satisfying
myself that those who were able to read had been
first supplied.
The prisoners then gathered around in a
crowded standing group, to hear the singing of a
hymn, a few verses were read from Luke’s Gospel
that they had just received, after they had been
told where to find the passage. A simple Gospel
message was then delivered to a most appreciative
audience. During the closing prayer every man
stood with bowed and uncovered head. The ladies
then went to speak to the few women prisoners,
while I accepted, with some reluctance I must con¬
fess, the invitation of a prisoner who had been
active in helping with the service to have a seat in
his cell. I noted a Bible on a box in one corner
and remarked my pleasure at seeing it there.
“ Yes,” said he, “ this imprisonment, though un¬
just, has been a good thing for me, since I have
found God here.” The man seemed to be truly
converted. The fact that a man spends years in
jail in Peru is not even presumptive evidence that
he is a criminal. Several of the prisoners in the
Cuzco jail at this time had been there four years
192 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
without any kind of trial ; having been arrested on
suspicion, they were being held until they could
prove their own innocence.
As we were leaving the jail, the missionaries ob¬
tained permission for us to give the prisoners a
lantern lecture the following Wednesday after¬
noon. I will anticipate by saying that we gave the
illustrated lecture on the mission and work of the
American Bible Society to as appreciative an audi¬
ence as I have ever seen. The prisoners were as
enthusiastic as children in helping to put up the
screen and make the electric connections. The
lecture was given in a darkened corridor, crowded
to capacity with the standing prisoners. With
every movement we were obliged to elbow our way
among our standing audience and come in contact
with their filthy garments. The odour was any¬
thing but agreeable. The way those ladies stood
by, helping to handle the slides, etc., without show¬
ing the slightest sign of repulsion, smiling upon all
and making pleasant remarks as occasion offered,
was an object lesson in self-forgetful service.
But to return to Sunday afternoon. After the
short service, Miss Pinn asked if any were suffer¬
ing from toothache. Two men stepped forward,
much to the pleasure of the other prisoners, who
were anxious to see the fun. Seating the patient
astride a chair with his face to the back, Miss Pinn
got a grip with the forceps upon the troublesome
molar. It was obstinate at first but yielded to firm
THE MACEDONIAN CRY 193
persuasion and was held up to be viewed by the
applauding spectators. The first patient exhibited
the extracted tooth with its cavity while Miss Pinn
operated with equal success upon the other, in
spite of the impediment to her movements, offered
by the interested onlookers. As we passed out we
found the jailer and several members of the guard
reading the copies of the Gospel that we had
given them.
When we entered the mission compound on our
return from the jail, Miss Baker came running to
meet us, crying out : “ The Indians have returned,
a whole army of them.” As we rounded the cor¬
ner of the house, we saw Mr. and Mrs. Milham
standing with their backs to the wall, their heads
and shoulders covered with flower petals that a
company of Indians clad in their characteristic
ponchos had thrown over them. As soon as we
appeared, those Indians who had been in the meet¬
ing the night before, ran and embraced me, and,
standing me beside Mr. Milham, threw another
shower of white petals. There were sixty-two of
them. They had brought an interpreter and
wanted to show their appreciation for our interest
in them and to hear more of the Gospel.
Mr. Milham requested me to speak to them. I
told them that God had made us and placed us here
to serve Him ; that all the misery in the world had
come as a result of disobedience to God’s law.
Man had sinned and gone astray; but that God,
194 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
the loving Father, was doing all in His power to
redeem and win us back to Himself. He had sent
Jesus to show us His will and to provide for us a
way of salvation. All of these things are written
in a Book which He has also given us that we may
find our way to Him. Repentance for our wrong¬
doing and obedience to God is our only way out of
trouble into happiness. I then asked the inter¬
preter to read John iii: 16, in Quechua.
I was at a loss what further to say to this un¬
usual company. I wanted to establish some point
of contact and the idea occurred to me to question
them. So I said : “ Now, you have all come here
for some purpose. What do you want? Is there
anything we can do for you? Any way in which
we can help you ? ” Their answer through the in¬
terpreter was prompt and repeated : “ We want
civilisation. We want civilisation. We want
schools where we and our children can learn to
read. We are being robbed of our land, our ani¬
mals, of even our clothing and the labour of our¬
selves and children because we are ignorant and
cannot read or write and do not know how to se¬
cure our rights. We know that the laws of Peru
are good, but we cannot avail ourselves of them
because of our ignorance. The law says our chil¬
dren shall have an education; but the land-owners
do not want them to learn. When we do send the
children to school, the teachers always use them as
servants to work and to run on trivial errands.
THE MACEDONIAN CRY
195
They also send them out among the land-owners in
the neighbourhood to act as servants in the houses.
We are imprisoned on false charges in order to
break our spirits. The priests are one with the
land-owners and officials. We want Christian,
Protestant schools. Please send them as quickly as
you can and save us from extermination.”
I asked if they would be willing to help with the
construction of such schools and with the support
of teachers if we could secure them. They replied
that they would be willing to make the adobe
bricks and do the work connected with the build¬
ing, and that they would share their food with the
teachers. I promised that we would do our best to
see that this appeal of theirs reached the ears of
the Christian world. I urged them to pray to our
loving Heavenly Father for the needed help, and
told them that we would continue to pray for them
while trying to see what could be done to secure
for them the opportunity for an education. Mean¬
while, I asked them to come back the next morning
at eight, and let me have a photograph taken of all
who wanted Christian schools established in their
villages and communities. They promised to come.
Promptly at eight A. M. the following day more
than one hundred presented themselves. Those
who came said there %vould have been more, but
that many had returned to their homes discour¬
aged at the indifference of the government to their
appeal for protection. I was not particularly well
196 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
pleased with the work of the photographer. He
talked and joked in Quechua and in Spanish and
succeeded in a measure in getting them to smile.
I would have preferred the characteristic sad and
serious expression with which they were looking
to far-off America as a possible source of the help
of which they stand in such desperate need. The
fact that some of them were smiling when the
photo was taken, however, not only disproves the
assertion that the Quechua Indian never smiles, but
is an evidence, and for us who were there a me¬
morial, of the way in which these Indians let
down the partition of suspicious reserve that
they habitually throw up between themselves and
the white man, in order to talk to us of their needy
condition.
After the photographer left, we gave them a few
added words of encouragement and invited them to
return in the evening to see some lantern views of
my own land which I promised to show them. As
they left, every one of the men came and embraced
Mr. Milham and myself. The respectful embrace
given by a Quechua Indian consists in putting the
arms around, one over the shoulder and the other
under the opposite arm of the person embraced, but
without compressing or even touching him. The
Indians all returned at night, and we gave them
the illustrated lecture on the front lawn of the
missionary home, using the whitewashed outside
wall as a screen. Most of those present had never
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THE MACEDONIAN CRY
197
seen anything of the kind before; for such, it was
the first glimpse of the outside world. The lecture
was on the work of the American Bible Society in
the United States and included some public build¬
ings and monuments as well as the White House
at Washington and other places of interest. The
views that attracted most attention, however, and
those that brought a murmur of approval every
time one was thrown on the screen, were pictures
of school-houses, schools in session, and classes ac¬
companied by their teachers. The lantern lecture
was our farewell to these Indians. Our hearts
went out to them as they left us. Most of them
would leave for their distant homes on the morrow.
They were representatives from villages and dis¬
tricts throughout the extensive Department of
Cuzco. Some of them had come many days’ jour¬
ney on foot, facing the cold and privation of the
higher altitudes. Many had come by roundabout
ways in order to avoid meeting land-owners of
their acquaintance. Others had traveled by night
for the same purpose. Some anticipated being
waylaid and beaten for their temerity in demand¬
ing the protection of the government. They might
even be killed and the murderers go unpunished.
Disappointed and discouraged at the attitude of
their own government, they had discovered that
there was one class of white people who were in¬
terested in their welfare, and were returning to
their homes with a glimmer of hope, that some-
198 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
thing might be done for them by the Christian
churches of the Protestant world.
From every quarter, from books and news¬
papers, from conversation with eye-witnesses, and
from what I myself saw, I was abundantly con¬
vinced that the Indians under-, rather than over¬
stated, the wrongs from which they are suffering.
A landlord riding in the vicinity of Puno, Peru,
with Professor E. C. Phillips, an American edu¬
cator, came upon a small company of Indians and
asked them a question in the native tongue. Upon
their indicating one of their number, he spurred his
horse towards him. The Indian turned to flee,
but could not escape. The man struck him from
behind with his riding whip and cut his face open
from forehead to chin, making a ghastly wound,
and left him covered with blood which spurted
from mouth, nose, and the whole length of the
face. The brute then returned to Mr. Phillips, re¬
marking : “ I will teach him to let mules get into
my wheat field.” The day before leaving Cuzco,
I visited the little dispensary in order to see Dr.
Buchanan treat the waiting Indian patients. A
strong man presented himself with a badly bruised
arm and shoulder and a great gash on the fleshy
part of the forearm. To the doctor's questioning,
always through an interpreter, the man told how
the injuries had been inflicted by a drunken priest,
who set upon him with a club armed with spikes
and gave him a terrible beating because he had not
THE MACEDONIAN CRY
199
come immediately when called. Such outrages are
constantly perpetrated with impunity. It would be
useless to attempt to detail the interminable list of
injustices suffered by the Indian from the land-
owners, priests, and civil authorities. Even the
soldiers sent by the government in Lima for
their protection steal the Indians’ blankets and
ponchos, outrage their daughters and young
wives, and if the male relatives resist, kill or
imprison them.
In the centennial number of the Cuzco “ Sol,” a
well-known doctor of the place describes the jail
as a vile, loathsome den, and says it would be a
good thing if the youth of the city would destroy
it like another “ Bastille.” He goes on to tell of an
Indian, Paul Quispe, being tortured, branded with
a red-hot iron, and beaten by a land-owner, then
sent to the Cuzco jail where he had been lying for
months without any trial. The same number of
the paper had a four-column article describing in
detail the way in which landed proprietors sys¬
tematically rob the Indians of everything they
possess and then, if they offer any resistance, have
them shot down by soldiers of the government.
This writer affirms and repeats that there is no
justice for the Indian in Peru.
The full significance of that gathering of In¬
dians in the mission compound, appealing to us for
help, did not dawn upon me at the time, and I do
not know that I yet comprehend it fully. As far as
200 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
I have been able to learn, it is the first time in
history that a like representative body of Quechua
Indians has ever made such an appeal to the Chris¬
tian Church. These Indians could not speak nor
understand Spanish. They cannot read their own
language, and they spoke through an interpreter,
but there was no mistaking what they wanted —
help from those who knew better than they how
to solve life’s problems.
While those attempting to evangelise the Indian
and help him in his upward struggle will have the
encouragement and sympathy of enlightened na¬
tional leaders, violent opposition may be expected
from those interested in keeping him in a state of
slavery. I have already spoken of the expulsion of
the missionaries from Yungay, Peru. Encouraged
by their success in Yungay, the friars attempted to
incite the people to drive the Scotch Presbyterian
missionaries from Cajamarca. They organised a
procession with an image at the head which halted
in the street in front of the missionary home. A
religious zealot then mounted the balcony opposite
and began to read a discourse in which he de¬
manded the expulsion of the Protestants, declaring
that they were free masons and socialists, both of
which Rome considers special enemies. When he
was in the midst of his harangue a young lawyer
presented himself at his side and began a speech
reminding the people that liberty of worship was
the right of all in the Republic. The disgusted
MR. POWLISON BEHIND PRISON BARS FOR THE SAKE
OF THE GOSPEL, SAN PEDRO, BOLIVIA, 1922.
CAKCHIQUEL INDIAN EVANGELISTS OF CENTRAL
AMERICA MISSION, ANTIGUA, GUATEMALA.
THE MACEDONIAN CRY
201
monk immediately ordered the procession to
proceed.
In January, 1922, shortly after my visit to San
Pedro the Rev. George Allan was imprisoned at
the instigation of the local priest, who then got
drunk and boasted that he now had the heretics in
his power. Mr. Powlison, of Torocari, where I
passed the night on my way to and from San
Pedro, was in jail many weeks and under arrest
the greater part of 1922, accused of murder of an
Indian boy whom he had befriended. In Spanish
countries any one of sufficient standing can make
an accusation against another and have him im¬
prisoned on suspicion. The accused must then
prove his own innocence in order to obtain his re¬
lease. The government is under no obligation to
prove guilt. Mr. Powlison was given to under¬
stand that if he would promise to leave the
country all would be well and he would be re¬
leased. This, however, he refused to do, and his
wife and little children waited his return many
months alone in the mud-walled hut of the Indian
village.
Any work in these countries has its intellectual
as well as its spiritual compensations. While the
missionary is engaged in the task of evangelisation
and community uplift there is ample scope for the
continuation of study and personal development as
well as abundant opportunity to contribute to the
stock of world-knowledge in a variety of intensely
202 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN AMERICA
interesting fields of research. Many of the sciences
await contributions from Indian America.
These glimpses have dealt almost exclusively
with the semi-civilised agricultural and pastoral
Indians now occupying the territory of the great
pre-Spanish empires and civilisations. Slight ref¬
erence has been made to the very many small
barbarous and savage tribes inhabiting the tropical
jungle, or to the sporadic cases of missionary ef¬
fort to reach them. These also present an impor¬
tant and fascinating field for Christian activity.
The present burden of responsibility, however, lies
in ministering to these more numerous nations of
Maya, Quechua, and Aymara stock whose repre¬
sentatives are already looking to us for help.
These will then furnish the workers and leaders to
undertake their own burden of helping their
weaker and more needy neighbours.
As I view in retrospect the sections of Indian
America described, I see the filth and squalour, the
poverty and rags, the hopeless apathy depicted on
the features ; I see an Indian with his face cut open
by the cruel whip of the landlord, another with
arm and shoulder mutilated by a drunken priest.
I see the filthy jails and the wretched hovels. Then
I see that body of representative Indians in Cuzco
appealing through me to Christian America for
help and my heart goes out to God in gratitude for
sparing me to bring their message. With the eye
of faith I also see advantage taken of this oppor-
THE MACEDONIAN CRY
203
tunity for Christian service to the helpless repre¬
sentatives of once powerful nations; I see mission¬
ary doctors, nurses, and teachers, dispensaries and
hospitals, churches and schools; I see cleanliness
and hygiene eliminating smallpox, typhus, and
typhoid; I see mothers helped and the great infant
mortality checked. As the result of the helping
hand finally held out to him in the name of our
Master, I see the virile and tenacious redeemed In¬
dian multiplying, prospering, and coming into his
own in the marvelous heritage that is his in the
heart of the great Continent that God has given
him.
Index
Aguas Calientes, Mexico, 80.
Aguilar, Gen. Hijinio, 45.
Allan, Mr. George, 88, 151,
161.
Alvarado, Gen. Salvador, 41.
Amazon, 94; valley, 86, 90,
128, 136, 172; sources of,
!57.
American Bible Society, 25,
26, 49, 60, 62, 81, 82, 83,
85, 88, 89, 90, 93, 118, 192.
American Institute, La Paz,
142.
Andes, accessible from west,
94.
Antigua, Gautemala, 87.
Appeal, for civilization, 23,
194; to the heroic, 24.
Arequipa, Peru, 105, 106,
107,108,110.
Army, Mexican, 29, 38, 39,
40.
Arque, Bolivia, 151, 165-7-8.
Atahualpa, 175.
Aymaras, 16, 86, 88, 89, 110,
111, 144, 146, 170, 174.
Aymara language, 137, 174.
Baker, Miss Joyce B. A.,
182, 193.
Barker, Rev. W. F., 126-7.
Barron, Sr., 164.
Becerra, Miss Febe, 70.
Beck, Mr. Frank, 142.
Benson, Rev. J. H., 64.
Bible distribution, 60; re¬
sults of, 60-64, 164.
Bible House, Cristobal, C.
Z., 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88,
92, 94, 95.
Blanco, Rev. Asuncion, 37.
Blanco, Rev. L., 48, 62, 63.
Bocas del Toro, Panama, 83.
Bolivia, 11, 12, 17, 88, 94,
105, 110, 128; Comparison
of, 128.
Bolivian Indian Mission, 88,
151, 157, 164.
Buchanan, Dr. Jas., 178, 188.
Burgess, Rev. Paul, 87, 88.
Cakchiquels, 86, 87.
Callao, Peru, 102, 105.
Campeche, 32, 33, 34, 36.
Canadian Baptists, 142-3-4.
Carranza, 48, 79, 80.
Central America, 82, 88, 89.
Chagres River, 97.
Chibchas, 86.
Christian and Missionary
Alliance, 93.
Chuno — see Dried Potatoes.
Churches, Disposition of, in
Yucatan, 53-56.
Civilization, Appeal for, 23,
194; Indian, 11, 15, 16.
Cleanliness of Mayas, 29; of
mission converts, 112, 113,
121.
Coca chewing, 111, 122, 176.
Cochabamba, Bolivia, 140,
141, 145, 150.
Colburn, Mr. H. M., 112,
120, 121.
Colombia, 82, 83.
Colon, R. P., 84, 86.
Colporteurs, 25, 32, 33, 62.
Columbus, 23.
Constancy of Mexicans, 13.
Conversions from Bible
Reading, 60-64, 164.
Cordillera Real, 129, 131.
204
INDEX 205
Cortez, 23.
Cousins, Rev. S. C., 83.
Cragin, Mr. Paul, 126-127.
Cristobal, C. Z., 82, 83, 86,
92, 94, 95. See Bible
House.
Cuzco, Peru, 89, 170-203 ;
ruins of, 177.
Darien Indians, 86.
Diaz regime in Mexico, 12,
14, 15, 38.
Diglot Gospels, 89, 165.
Distributing Gospels, 20-22.
Dress, of Mayas, 33 ; of La
Paz, 135-137.
Dried Potatoes, 117.
Drunkenness, 19-20, 138,
139, 176.
Durango, Mexico, 63, 64.
Ecuador, 11, 23, 89, 93, 110.
Ecuadorian Coast, 100.
Education, in Mexico, 39,
42 ; desire for in Peru,
124, 143, 144, 194-7; de¬
sired generally, 59.
Erosion, rapid, 147-150.
Evangelical Union of South
America, 179.
Exploitation of Indian, 15-
18, 139, 140, 176.
Fanaticism, absent, 64.
Fanatics, 56, 126.
Farm, Mission, 143, 181.
Festivals, 19-20, 137-140.
Field, Mrs., 112.
Flies, of Lake Texcoco, 74.
Forecast, 202-3.
Friendliness, 49, 50, 53, 80.
Garcia, Aurelia and Maici-
mino, 66-69; family, 73.
Garza Mora, Rev., 60-61.
Gatun, Lake, 97.
Gospel distributing in Mex¬
ico, 20-22.
Gospel Missionary Union,
92.
Gregory, Rev. R. R., 87.
Guaqui, Bolivia, 129.
Gautemala, 11, 12, 17, 19,
87; gold of, 16-17.
Hauser, Rev. J. P., 48.
Head Hunters, see Jibaros.
Herrera, Colporteur, 32.
Herrera, Professor, Mexico
City, 78-9.
Huerta, 39.
Incas, 102, 110, 111, 170, 178.
Inca Empire, 94.
Indian, disinherited, 12, 14,
44; ignorant, 14; former
culture of, 15; character¬
istics, 16; as pack animals,
17, 18; neglected, 23;
Appeal of, 23, 24; not
fanatical, 51-64.
Indian America, definition
of, 11; unevangelized, 11.
Illiteracy, 14.
Jail, in Cuzco, visit to, 189-
192.
Jarrett, Rev. John T., 179.
Jibaros, 90-3.
Jordan, David C., 68.
Jordan, Mrs. W. F., 35, 65,
66, 67, 73, 80.
Juarez, Benito, 17.
Juliaca, Peru, 123, 171.
Lake Texcoco, Mexico, 65,
70-77, 80.
Lake Titicaca, 105, 110, 114-
16, 118, 126, 129, 143, 171,
172, 173.
Lake Titicaca Mission, 112,
118-26.
La Paz, Bolivia, 105, 128-
144.
Laredo, Texas, 20, 49, 50.
Lima, Peru, 103-5.
Llera, Sr. E., 33.
206
INDEX
Literature needed, 59, 60.
Lottery in Peru, 103-4.
Maltrata, Mexico, 47.
Markham, Sir Edwin, 130.
Marrs, Rev. Frank, 64.
Maryland Bible Society, 82.
Mayas, 29.
Maya Language, 31, 37, 63,
87.
McKinney, Mr. and Mrs. H.
C., 151, 152, 168.
Medical assistance needed,
58,59,125,163.
Merida, Yucatan, 28, 29, 30,
32, 36, 37.
Methodist Episcopal Mis¬
sion Schools, 140-2.
Mexicans, Character of, 13,
37, , 50.
Mexico, 11, 23; peonage
abolished, 12, 44; Diaz re¬
gime in, 14; life in, 25-82.
Mexico City, 17, 20, 44, 47,
48, 49, 50, 65, 72, 74;
thievery in, 69; Museums,
77-8
Michell, Miss, 184, 185, 186.
Milham, Rev. Wm., 178, 185,
193.
Milham, Mrs., 182, 186, 193.
Mission Indians, 112-13.
Missionary farm, Cuzco,
181.
Mollendo, Peru, 105, 171.
Molloy, Rev. and Mrs. J. T.,
37.
Moravians, 88.
Mosquito Indians, 88.
Mountain Fuel, tola yareta,
108.
Mountain sickness, 108, 109,
112.
Mule journey, 152-163.
Muna, Yucatan, 52.
Museums, 77, 78, 104.
Nature of help needed, 58-
59.
Nicaragua, C. A., 88.
Oldham, Bishop Wm. F.,
143.
Orizaba City, 45.
Orizaba Mountain, 43.
Oruro, Bolivia, 145, 147.
Panama, 82, 83, 86, 94; In¬
dians of, 83-86.
Panama Canal, 82 ; transit
of, 95-99.
Payne, Mr., and Missionary
Farm, 181.
Peonage, 12, 30-31, 44, 194.
Persecution in Peru, 126,
127 ; to be expected, 200 ;
in Bolivia, 201.
Peru, 11, 12, 93, 128.
Peruvian Coast, 100-102.
Peters, Rev. F., 180.
Photographing Q u e c h u a
Group, 196.
Pinn, Miss, 184, 189.
Pizarro, 23, 94, 104.
Plateria, Peru, 113, 120-1,
125.
Powlison, Mr. and Mrs.,
157, 201.
Presbyterian Mission, 37, 60,
61.
Progreso, Yucatan, 26, 33,
38, 53.
Protestant Missions, native
testimony, 118-9.
Pulque, 48.
Puno, Peru, 95, 105, 110,
111, 119, 128, 172.
Purdy, Mrs. E., 85.
Quechuas, 16, 86, 88, 89, 90,
93, 110, 144, 146, 151, 152,
164-5, 168, 170-203; New
Test., 164-5.
Queretero, Mexico, 20.
Quezaltenango, Gautemala,
17.
Quiches, 86, 87, 105.
Quito, Ecuador, 17, 110.
INDEX
Railway Travel, in Yuca¬
tan, 32-36; in Mexico, 44-
49; in Peru, 105-111, 172,
178; in Bolivia, 129-131,
1.45-151.
Religious liberty in Yuca¬
tan, 41.
Reserve, causes of, 58.
Retrospect, 202.
Revolution, Mexican, 25, 27,
30.
Riobamba, Ecuador, 89, 90.
Rock rivers, 149, 157.
Rodriguez, Colporteur Luis,
39, 40.
Rojas, Rev. Miguel, 46.
Roman clergy, hated, 14, 39,
41, 46.
Salaverry, Peru, 118.
San Bias Indians, 83, 85.
San Luis Potosi, Mexico,
49.
San Pedro, Bolivia, 151-5-8,
^ 161, 165, 166, 168.
Schools built to show good
faith, 125.
Servants in Mexico, 65-69.
Seventh Day Adventists,
118, 122, 125.
Shakeshaft, Mr., 163.
Soldiers, 14 ; Students, 39-40.
Soria, Rev. Francisco, 64.
Southern Baptist Mission,
64.
Stahl, Mr. and Mrs. F. A.,
118, 119.
Texcoco, see Lake Texcoco.
Thievery, in Mexico, 44, 49;
in Peru, 103.
Thompson, Wallace, quoted,
23.
207
Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, 129-30.
Ticul, Yucatan, 53.
Titicaca, see Lake Titicaca.
Torocari, Bolivia, 157, 165-
6, 201.
Townsend, Rev. W. C., 87.
Translation, 83, 87, 88, 89,
164, 165.
Underground rivers, Yuca¬
tan, 28.
Valiente Indians, 83.
Vasquez, Rev. A. T., 103.
Vera Cruz, Mexico, 42-44.
Villa, 48, 80.
Wealth of America, the
real, 23, 64.
Wesleyan Mission, English,
83.
Westrup, Mr. T. M., 63.
Whitehead, Mrs. Irving, 143.
Windmills, 28.
Wintemute, Rev. H. E., 144.
Wolfe, Rev. F. F., 40, 45.
Woodward, Mrs. Wm., 89,
90.
Xochimilco, Mexico, 79.
Xochitenco, Mexico, 65, 72.
Yaquis, 29.
Yellow fever, 34, 43.
Yucatan, 25-37 ; under¬
ground rivers, 28; peon¬
age abolished, 30, 31, 41,
42.
Zapata, 81.
Zunil, Gautemala, 19.
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