The Mexican Peon.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 906, 12 July 1889, Page 5

The Mexican Peon.

San Francisco Examinee. * Among the most curions people of this continent,’ remarked John Olendroff to a knot of three or four friends at the Occidental hotel, ‘are the native peons of Mexico, and when you look at the female portion of that unacoountable race you get a curious representation that makes you pause with wonder. Living on the borders of Arizona and Mexico, as I have for nine

years past, I have had a good opportunity to see many thisgs that most transient people would pass by unnoticed. The longer I stay the more I am impressed with the unaccountable ways of the descendants of the Aztecs. The society ‘lady’ of the peons, if I may ipeak of her as such, has a way of doing up her back hair that I have never seen duplicated anywhere. It is no less than to put a gieat clay crown on the top of«her cranium, in which the hair is matted, like pigs’ bristles in plaster. This crown reaches up say eight or nine inches and looks like a great plaster cone. It serves a double purpose. Not only is it worn at evening parties, but throughout the day. Indeed, the primary object of the mud cone was to preserve the head the intense heat of the southern Bun. Now, however, it is worn at evening balls, and no 1 lady' thinks herself recherche and in positively good form unless she has her novel crown on. The hair is matted and twisted and coiled all around in it, and it may be depended on that it cannot come loose and oome tumbling down and cause her any embarrassment in company. The longer a cone is worn the harder it gets, and when it has reached the age of a month, say, it is as hard as a brickbat, and would have to be Bmashed to pieces with a sledge if there were no other way discovered. This, however, happily is the case. The old Aztecs invented, and the secret has been perpetuated in the race, a peculiar solution compounded from wild plants which knooks the plaster topknot to smithereens. It takes some time to doit, however, usually from five to six hours, and during this time the lovely Aztec maiden or matron must soak her head in a big jar of this solution. It is the proper thing for the women to change these cones at least once a month. After that the whitish soil of which it is composed changes to a dull yellow and the wearer loses caste. And there is caste among the peons as much as there is among any other classes of people. These native women are fond of necklaces, and you will often see them going about with nothing on except a necklace and a mud crown. Others again will have very slight raiment. The men do not wear mud crowns, but they are often as limited in their attire as the feminine sex. Their habits are extremely simple in the main, though in some other respects they go off on wild tangents. During a large part of the year you will see, if you will journey through this region, hammocks slung from all the trees at night time. Indeed, if you were to be out of a moonlight night, and it was your first experience, you would think the palm and pine, trees were bearing singular fruit. The natives are all in these hammocks. They are there to escape the tarantulas, centipedes and Mexican scorpions, which are out on the rampage. Let one of these things get into your blankets and he will never be easy until he gets a nip at the occupant. This is why the natives .never sleep on the ground. Besides, it is cooler and more comfortable in the trees. The peon, when he rises in the morning, makes a queer obeisance to the east. He is saluting the morning sun, and does it by first bowing until he has his body at right angles to his legs and horizontal to the earth. In this position he pauses devoutly for perhaps a quarter of H minute, and then, raising his body to its proper position, he abruptly thrusts his right leg, and then his left, forward. Another polite bow to Aurora, delivered by an inclination of the head alone, and the business is done. This salutation is supposed to win him favour with the reigning forces of the heavens and make him * solid ’ for the day. The women never go through this morning performance. They leave all such things to the men. The children of both sexes quickly catch up the ways of their elders, and thus grow np perpetuating all the customs of the race.’