The Human Side of Mexico

I

AN old Mexican was speaking, a gray-haired laborer who had worked for twelve years in California. He was on his way to a village in Sonora.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am going home; I have been here long enough. It is true that wages are better, but money is not everything: to be content a man needs some esteem. Here I can never be more than a Mexican who must be watched to see that he does an honest day’s work. I do not believe that I am lazy,— I have done my best for my employers, — but it is hard for us to please the Americans.

‘One of my friends tells of a Mexican who was traveling through Arizona with his grandson. They had a donkey which the old man rode while the boy walked behind. After a time they passed some Americans on the road. “Look at that man,” said one, “riding his burro while the little boy walks — just like a lazy Mexican! ” The old man understood a little English, so he dismounted and made the boy ride. Presently a party of cowboys cantered by. “Mexicans are a shameless people,” they said; “see how that lazy boy rides, while the old man walks behind in the dust.” Hearing this, the Mexican mounted behind his grandson, and the donkey went on, carrying double. At the foot of a hill they met a stage. “Lazy Mexicans,” exclaimed the passengers scornfully, “both riding that poor little burro!”

There is a germ of truth in this view of our attitude toward the Mexicans. We are inclined to believe that difference from ourselves implies inferiority — an insular weakness which has been the chief obstacle to cordial relations with the Latin-American republics. Whatever the outcome of the present situation, a little tolerance will do no harm — a little effort to see the good in a race we do not at present understand.

The Mexican may be described as an Indian with a dash of Iberian blood. No statistics are available, but it is doubtful whether the proportion of Spanish blood exceeds one eighth possibly it is less. Except in the case of a few tribes like the Yaquis of Sonora and t he Mayas of Yucatan, Mexico has absorbed, or is rapidly absorbing, all her aborigines; unlike ourselves, she has been confronted with no Indian problem. The native blood predominating in the mixture is that of the ancient Nahua race, which included all the ruling tribes from the Rio Grande to Tehuantepec — a group of which the Aztecs were the most famous and powerful members. In an admirable characterization of the Aztec, Mr. Lewis Spence describes him as ‘grave, taciturn, and melancholic, with a deeply rooted love of the mysterious; slow to anger, yet almost inhuman in the violence of his passions when aroused. He is usually gifted with a logical mind, quickness of apprehension and an ability to regard the subtle side of things with great nicety. . . - He has a real affection for the beautiful in nature and a passion for flowers; but the Aztec music lacked gayety, and the national amusements were too often of a gloomy and ferocious character.’ My own experience among the remnants of the race leads only to increased respect for Mr. Spence’s insight, although he has failed to give credit for a fine domesticity and love of children.

The philosophy of the modern Mexican is as foreign to us as the customs of ancient Mexico. The chief incentive which drives the European races on to struggle and progress is the desire for material gain, but in the life of the Mexican this motive plays only a secondary part. Some years ago I was visiting a cane plantation in the state of Vera Cruz. It was time to cut the sugar-cane, and as usual there was a shortage of labor. Ordinary wages were the equivalent of forty cents a day. The manager made calculations and found that he could double the rate for cane-cutting and still be ahead, because the running-time of his mill would be cut in half. At least, he believed, in his ignorance of the people, that it could be cut in half. So announcement of double pay was made, and long lines of peons came trudging in — but they worked only half time!

An old woman in the market-place of Córdoba gave me further enlightenment. I used to buy fruit of her, and one morning I found that she had nothing to sell except a basket of particularly fine mangoes — Manila mangoes, not the ordinary resinous kind. I inquired the price: to a friend they were worth a penny each.

‘How many are there, Doña Ignacia?’ I asked.

She counted them laboriously, twice over; there were thirty. I took thirty cents from my pocket, handed her the money and reached for the basket.

'But no, señor,’ she protested; 'if you take them all I must charge forty cents.’

‘Why so?’ I asked, not a little puzzled at her logic; ‘you can get no more if you sell them one by one, and by selling them all to me you will have the rest of the day to yourself.’

She shook her head in vehement denial. 'No, no,’ she explained; ‘you do not understand. Take half a dozen if you like at a penny each, but I cannot let you have all at that price. If I sell them all at once, I lose the pleasure of a day’s market.’

This attitude of mind is difficult for us to comprehend. Mexico is a wonderfully fertile land, where crops seem to grow almost without attention; Humboldt declared it the richest in the world. Long ago the country Mexican discovered that he could live with a minimum of effort. There is food in the house, the sun is warm overhead, there are amusing neighbors with whom to gossip — why overdo the business of work? It is a pleasant philosophy, fit for a pleasant land.

If you share the American idea that the Mexican is lazy, go to the cities and watch the Mexican craftsmen working at the arts in which they excel. See how the leather-worker leans over his bench all day, carving out flowers and scrolls with exquisite skill. Ask him the price of an embossed pistol-holster, and the chances are that he will scratch his head distractedly before he can recall the amount —it is not fair to interrupt one’s work for a little thing like money.

On several occasions I have employed Mexicans side by side with Americans at the same work, against the advice of friends, who predicted racial feeling and the demoralization of the regular men. The Americans were fine fellows, such as exist by millions in our country, and the Mexicans relatively the same. What was the result? Miguel became Mike; Pedro, Pete; Juan, Johnny. They held up their end manfully, so that more than one of my countrymen came to tell me privately that he had changed his opinion of Mexicans. They grew to understand the good-nature of our rougher ways, and worked well because it seemed the thing to do, where a man was measured by what he could accomplish. I even fancied at times that the Mexicans were not the only ones to profit by the mixture of races. No good American would confess that he had learned manners from a foreigner, but one felt vaguely an atmosphere of quieter courtesy and greater consideration.

Both the Spanish and the Indians with whom they have intermarried are people of inherent good manners and of thoughtfulness for the feelings of others. Traveling in Mexico one drifts into conversation with a chance acquaintance and asks him where he lives. ‘In Guadalajara,’ he replies, ‘on the street of Zaragoza; there you have your home.’ Perhaps one is walking with a Mexican and passes his place. ‘Is that your house?’ one asks; and he answers, ‘No, it is yours.’

These are set forms, of course, mechanically spoken and not meant to be taken literally; but I should hesitate to say that they are entirely without a basis of sincerity. We are too apt to sneer at such amenities, not realizing that to the Mexican there is no duty more sacred than that of hospitality. The poorest peon, with only a handful of corn in his grass hut, will share it with a belated traveler who asks for shelter, and will sleep on the floor while the stranger enjoys the comfort of a bed. In such cases money is neither offered nor expected; if it is desired to tender a small gift in return for some unusual service, one is often obliged to invent diplomatic means of disguising the idea of compensation.

A few years ago, in southern Mexico, I set out on a forty-mile ride to get money for the plantation pay-roll. The east was brightening as I passed the quarters; lights were appearing in one hut after another as the women began to work at their charcoal braziers and I heard the patting of tortillas and a sleepy hum of talk. Drowsy chickens were waking, to flutter down from the trees. Beyond the pasture the trail led straight into the blank wall of the jungle, above which the morning mist was rising in slow wreaths.

Hour after hour I penetrated deeper into this tropical forest — the trail, a tunnel, with soft decaying vegetation underfoot, and a dim roof of green. The enormous trunks of trees, shrouded in creepers and pale orchids, stood like columns seen by twilight, in some ruined temple. My horse’s feet made no sound. Strange little animals — sloths, anteaters, and coatis — walked slowly and noiselessly along the branches; small gray birds flitted silently from tree to tree, always just ahead. There was a sense of veiled watching, oppressive and unreal as the atmosphere of a dream — one felt that it would be dangerous to whistle, even to speak above a whisper.

At last, as I reached the edge of a forgotten clearing, I realized that something more than imagination was at fault, for my head was throbbing painfully and I felt the cold touch of a malarial chill.

I got off my horse and spent a bad thirty minutes beside the trail, shivering and half delirious, until an old woman came hobbling up in great concern. There were no men at her hut, but she would lead the horse if I could walk — Come, it was only five minutes away.

My chill developed into a brisk attack of pernicious fever; for two weeks I lay on a mat under kind old María’s grass-thatched roof. There was no quinine, but she took delight in compounding certain doubtful brews which I was too weak to refuse. She was poor: there was not even a dog about the place, for dogs must eat. Her one possession was a pig, the very apple of her eye, christened Narciso after a departed son. Had he looked in a pool. Narciso would scarcely have fallen in love with his own image, but in the eyes of his mistress he was perfect. His mate, she informed me, had been killed by a jaguar.

As I grew stronger, I began to think of my departure. Knowing that she would take no pay for what was a common duty, I cast about for a way to save her face and yet make fair recompense for all that she had done. The idea came one morning as I lay on my mat, watching Narciso trot pensively from the jungle in answer to Maria’s shrill summons.

‘I have a favor to ask of you,’ I said, when the day of parting came. ‘It is evident, to one in sympathy with pigs, that Narciso feels the absence of his companion. It would relieve my mind to know that he was not lonely, so please take these twenty pesos and provide him with a fitting mate.’

II

In Latin-America these little courtesies have their part in business — the Mexican will often pay a greater price in order to deal with a man whose manners and personality inspire confidence. Our salesmen complain of the slowness of doing business in Mexico, not realizing that it is because the native likes to have a thorough knowledge of the man with whom he is dealing. The type we call ‘a good talker,’ or ‘a quick closer,’ is out of place in the southern republics, where the quiet and wellbred man, who conforms to native customs, mails home the largest orders.

In the past, we have taken as little pains to understand the character and customs of the Mexicans, as to study their commercial needs. I shall not forget the case of a Mexican neighbor who had been considering the installation of a large plant for the treatment of coffee, and finally placed his order with the representative of an American manufacturer. Of the various bids received, the successful one was by no means the lowest: it was accepted mainly because of the good-breeding and pleasant manners of the young American who had often visited the home of Don Enrique.

The planter had been careful to explain that no single piece or casting must weigh over three hundred pounds — the old story of mule transport. It was a sad day for him when the machinery was unloaded at the nearest railway point: the packing was wretched, with several cases broken, and a number of parts weighed far in excess of the limit. The planter was almost too patient and good-natured over the affair. Gangs of peons succeeded in carrying everything except the steamengine to the plantation. The engine had a fly-wheel weighing twelve hundred pounds, and even this, by superhuman efforts, they managed to roll fifteen miles over the mountain trails. Finally, at the top of one of the huge misty gorges which scar the flanks of Orizaba, it broke away and went bounding and crashing down two thousand feet, to lie forever in the bed of a mountain stream.

The Mexican is a lover of formality, both in manners and in dress. Eccentricity is not understood where one is judged largely by external things. Each man dresses according to his station: it is unthinkable that a well-to-do man should wear a straw sombrero or carry a sarape; the peons would be the first to jeer at him.

In the state of Oaxaca there used to be an Englishman who had married a Mexican lady of the upper class — a charming woman, educated abroad and very popular among the foreign residents. He was an excellent fellow, a hard worker who did not believe in riding to the cane-fields dressed as a boulevardier. It was one of our amusements to hear his wife upbraid him for looking like a cane-cutter; she could never understand his hatred of good clothes in the daytime.

This couple illustrated another difference in point of view, a small thing, but curiously indicative of the mental gulf which separates us from LatinAmerica. Doña Lola, in common with most of her countrywomen, was a great lover of pets, on which she lavished an almost foolish amount of tenderness and care. Her husband used to curse softly as he unclamped a parrot from the hat-rack, or discovered a tame oscelot asleep in his chair. A genuine horseman and lover of horses, he found it impossible to comprehend her tenderness for pets, coupled with a complete indifference to the feelings of domestic animals. On our rides together I have seen him bite his lip to keep down angry words at sight of the blood dripping from the flanks of his wife’s horse.

The Mexican inherits this cruelty to domestic beasts from both the Spaniard and the Indian, and his superstitions may be traced to the same double source. Few countries are richer in strange beliefs than Mexico, where witches assume the eyes of cats and flit through the night on vampire’s wings, where a brisk business is done in love-potions, and where candle-flames still point the way to buried treasure. Religion and superstition are closely linked, as is shown in the fear of the ghosts of unbaptized children, who wail along the fence that bars the way to consecrated ground. To the Mexican, religion is very real; heaven and hell actual places to be avoided or attained according to one’s life. His is not an intellectual creed, but a thing of pure faith, which answers the purpose just as well. There is a Celtic tinge in this attitude toward religion and the supernatural — the same faith, the same melancholy, the same half-heathen superstition. Perhaps there are other affinities between the races: certainly no one can fail to remark how well an Irishman gets on in Mexico.

A prospector I used to know was camped on the Gulf coast of Lower California, and one night a ragged white man appeared at the fireside, asking for water. Announcing in a rich brogue that he was a deserter from a whaling vessel, he inquired the way to the nearest village. My friend told him there was a little plaza forty miles inland, and offered to show him the way if he would wait two or three days. The Irishman was impatient, however, and in spite of the other’s warning that it was almost certain death to attempt the trip without water, he started off at daybreak. Three days later the prospector rode into Rosarito, mildly sorry for the poor madman who traveled Mexico without a word of Spanish, and was probably dead of thirst, somewhere in the sandhills. The village had a gala air; from the cantina came the scraping of fiddles and the shuffle of dancers’ feet. Troops of people were passing in and out of the largest house in town, and as the prospector drew near, who should appear in the doorway but the Irish wanderer, gorgeously arrayed, and leading a dusky but blushing young woman.

‘It’s welcome you are,’he said proudly, ‘and glad I am to see you on me weddin’ day. Let me introduce you to me wife.’

III

In the human qualities which all civilizations have admired, I do not believe the Mexican will be found wanting. He has plenty of physical courage: given the right leader, he makes a very passable soldier. His moral courage is not yet equal to that of the European races, for men fear the things they do not understand, and only education brings understanding. In commercial dealings I have found the Mexican, with few exceptions, honorable. This applies to the more educated classes; the others are upright in important matters, but inclined to small prevarication and thievery. Your house servant — a faithful fellow, perhaps, who would risk his life for you in an emergency — is apt to make raids on your cigars. If you catch him redhanded, you will be wise to scold him half-laughingly, for the privilege of outwitting you in small ways is one of his compensations for being a servant — almost a servant’s prerogative. The Mexican conception of personal honor differs oddly from ours. Strike an American, and he will fight, but you may be friends again; call him a liar or by any opprobrious name, and you have made an enemy. Almost any verbal offense can be patched up with a Mexican, but strike him in a moment of anger, and he will never forget.

The quality of charity is nowhere more universal than in Mexico. In the peon’s hut, when the family sits down to the scanty meal, there is always room for one more at the table — the thought of turning away the needy never enters their minds. Tramps are unknown; there is always a relative or compadre who will help out in time ol trouble. Like charity, love and respect for parents are inherent in the race: the Mexican who has received a mortal wound does not call upon God: he whispers pathetically, ‘Mama!’

There is good in the Mexican people, in spite of nine years of turmoil and excess. In the old days the country was in the hands of a few hereditary aristocrats, many of them thoughtful men, who realized their responsibilities and cared for the people by whose labor they profited. Then came Diaz. He established a few schools, and his political system gave birth to a middle class from which it became possible to step into the class of landlords. Such parvenus, with no conception of the responsibilities their position entailed, spent their time at the capital, leaving the management of their estates to men who were paid in proportion to the income they were able to wring from the unfortunate tenants and laborers. It is an old story, and the result was inevitable; the Mexicans are struggling blindly, but they are struggling to remedy conditions which had become intolerable.

I shall always remember a visit I paid my friend Don Blas, a few weeks before the outbreak of the Madero revolution. His plantation, the Hacienda Tlalocan, lies among the tropical foothills of Orizaba, and was in those days a charming example of the old benevolent paternalism — now gone forever. Six generations of the family had lived like kings among the fullblooded Aztecs, speaking their language, and knowing them as few educated men will again. The house was built of plastered stone, with roofs of tile. Gates of native wrought-iron work gave on the cobbled patio, three hundred feet long and a hundred wide, where a fountain played and girls poured water into jars, lingering to laugh and pass the time of day. Near the gate was the general store and canteen, and along the arched galleries one found representatives of the useful trades: saddler, blacksmith, butcher, baker, and dipper of tallow candles.

It was Saturday evening. The bookkeeper had moved his desk out into the court, and was paying off. Don Bias and I stood nearby, watching the people file in. The book-keeper spoke Aztec with fascinating ease, reading to each man the total of his earnings for the week as well as the amount of his purchases at the store, and handing him the balance in silver coin. Mutual trust made the transaction perfunctory; the Indians were as little likely to suspect Don Blas as he to take advantage of their confidence. Each worker, before he turned to the canteen for his aguardiente, took off his hat, bowed, and raised Don Blas’s hand to his lips. Smile if you will; I assure you there was nothing servile in what was simply the greeting of friends—one small, the other great, but. friends nevertheless. .

When the last Indian had been paid, a young woman came and stood before us, awaiting permission to speak. Two men were lounging near the gate, one holding a rope which bound the other’s arms; they chatted together pleasantly, the guard helping his prisoner to light a corn-husk cigarette. Don Blas nodded and the woman broke into a flood of swift speech, the words merging sibilantly, musical with lingual sounds. Strange to think that here in the twentieth century one heard the old Nahuatlatolli — the language of Montezuma — scarcely changed in the long years since Cortez first marched inland from the coast! The woman grew more vehement, made motions of tearing off her cotton huipil, and pointed to her back and shoulders. Finally, with a stamp of her foot, she turned accusingly toward the prisoner, who shifted about uneasily and did not meet her eyes. Don Blas spoke soothingly in Aztec.

‘This woman,’ he said to me with a chuckle, ‘is the wife of Juan Elotlan yonder — he has been beating her. You have heard how she talks; one can scarcely blame him, eh? She had the alguazil tie him up and wants me to punish him. What shall I do ?'

I shook my head; I am no Solomon. Don Blas thought for a moment.

‘Listen, thou,’ he told the guard in Spanish; ‘give the woman a strap and let her beat Juan until she is content.’

Half an hour later I saw the pair shuffling homeward: it was evident that neither bore a grudge.

We dined that night in the family dining-room. The furniture of native mahogany, hand-carved a century or two before, was beautiful beyond price. Don Blas sat at the head of the table, a clear-eyed man of sixty, straight and slender, bearded like a caliph of the Moors. Felipe, the superintendent, came in after we were seated and slipped into a chair opposite my host. Once or twice during the meal I spoke to him, but got no answer save a courteous yes or no. When he had finished, he rose, stood behind his chair, and bowed. Don Blas glanced up with a careless nod; Felipe bowed again and left the room.

When I expressed interest in the oldtime customs of the place, my host shook his head a little sadly.

‘In a few years it will be gone,’ he said; ‘ the old life ends with my generation. My son does not care to live here — he prefers the animation of the capital. There he has his horses, his motors, his friends at the Jockey Club. There is money enough; why should he not live the life he enjoys? As for me, I am a countryman, I like to hear the birds sing, to ride through the damp forest at sunrise. But sometimes I fear for my people; the little Indians need one who understands, to look after them. On any street-corner in Mexico one may hear whispers of the change to come. Our future depends on you Americans of the north, and all Latin-America will be watching. Let us hope that in those trying days you will deal with us tolerantly — making an effort to see the good which exists in the Mexican people.’

Don Blas was an educated and a thoughtful man. As I think of his words, a more recent incident comes to mind. It was at the ranch of a border cattleman. We had come in at dusk, leaving our horses in the corral. Walking toward the house, we met the Mexican chore-boy, a pleasant-faced lad, fresh from Sonora. The cattleman stopped him and pointed to the corral.

‘ You vamos down yonder,’ he ordered, ‘and drive them caballos over to the creek for a drink. Pronto now!’

The boy listened respectfully, his intelligent eyes bright with the striving to understand. Finally he shook his head.

‘No entiendo, señor,’ he said.

The American looked at mein disgust.

‘ Can you beat it ? ’ he remarked; ‘ that Mexican don’t even understand his own language!’