CHAPTER VII.
The Uncontaminated Tarahumares--A Tarahumare Court in Session--The Power of the Staff--Justice has its Course--Barrancas--Excursion to the Gentiles--Tarahumare Costumes Simple and Inexpensive--Trincheras in Use Among the Tarahumares.
We were lucky enough to secure a guide who, spoke the Tarahumare language very well, and our next stop was at the pueblo of Cusarare (a Spanish corruption of Usarare, usaka = eagle), an Indian village situated in a rather rough country full of weathered porphyry rocks.

We made camp a few miles outside of the village and sent the guide to prepare the people for our coming.

There had recently been considerable talk among the Mexicans of the wild people in the deep gorges, called barrancas, and it was with no little anticipation that I approached the country now immediately before us.

There were no Mexicans living in Cusarare, nor in the country ahead of us; in fact, with the exception of the small mining camp in Barranca de Cobre, there were none within fifty miles to the south, and almost an equal distance from east to west.
Indian pueblos throughout Mexico are almost abandoned for the greater part of the year.

I refer, of course, only to those which have not yet become Mexican settlements.