to the Tarahumare country of to-day. To
obtain it long and until recently perilous journeys have to be
undertaken every year to the plateaus of eastern Chihuahua, in the
Sierra del Almoloy, near the railroad station of Ximenez, and to
the Sierra de Margoso, beyond Santa Rosalia de Camarga, crossing
the tracks of the Mexican Central Railroad. From two or three to a
dozen men start out to get the plants, first purifying themselves
with copal incense. It takes a week or ten days to get to the Sierra
de Margoso, where the plants are chiefly found, and about a month is
consumed on the entire journey. Until they reach the hikuli country,
the Tarahumares may eat anything; but once there, they must abstain
from everything except pinole. Upon arriving at the spot, the pilgrims
erect a cross, and near it they place the first plants taken up, that
these may tell where others may be found in plenty. The second batch
of plants gathered is eaten raw, and makes the men drunk. As speech
is forbidden, they lie down in silence and sleep. The following day,
when perfectly sober again, they begin early in the morning to collect
the plants, taking them up with the utmost care, by means of sticks,
so as not to touch or injure them, because hikuli would get angry
and punish the offender. Two days are spent in gathering the plants,
each kind being placed in a separate bag, because, if they were mixed
together, they would fight. The bags are carefully carried on the
backs of the men, as the Tarahumares generally have no horses.

In the field in which it grows, it sings beautifully, that the
Tarahumare may find it. It says, "I want to go to your country, that
you may sing your songs to me." It also sings in the bag while it is
being carried home. One man, who wanted to use his bag as a pillow,
could not sleep, he said, because the plants made so much noise.

When the hikuli-seekers arrive at their homes, the people turn out
to welcome the plants with music, and a festival at which a sheep or
a goat is sacrificed is held in their honour. On this occasion the
shaman wears necklaces made of the seeds of _Coix Lachryma-Jobi_. In
due time he takes them off, and places them in a bowl containing water
in which the heart of the maguey has been soaked, and after a while
everyone present gets a spoonful of this water. The shaman, too, takes
some, and afterward wears the necklaces again. Both plants, the _Coix
Lachryma-Jobi_ as well as the maguey, are hi