"I am not of the Chichimeca," I said yet again, but I said it absently, for I was thinking. Of all the peoples I had known, only the Rarámuri grew that superfluous hair. I supposed that it was induced by the extremely cold weather they endured during part of each year, though I could not see that a growth of hair in those places was any useful protection against the cold. Another thought occurred to me, and I asked Tes-disora:

"Do your women grow similar little bushes?"

He laughed and said that of course they did. He explained that a sprouting of ymáxtli fuzz was one of the first signs of a child's approaching manhood or womanhood. On males and females alike, the fuzz gradually became hair—not very long hair, and no nuisance or impediment, but undeniably hair. I had already noticed, in the very brief time I had been in the village, that many of the Rarámuri women, though well muscled, were also well shaped and exceedingly fair of face. Which is to say that I found them attractive even before I knew of that distinctive peculiarity, which set me wondering: how would it feel, to couple with a woman whose tipíli was not forthrightly visible, or faintly veiled by only a fine down, but darkly and tantalizingly screened by hair like that on her head?

"You can easily find out," said Tes-disora, as if he had divined my unspoken thought. "During the tes-guinapuri games, simply chase a woman and run her down and verify the fact."

When I had first entered Guaguey-bo, I had been the object of some understandably wary and derisive glances from the villagers. But when I was clean, combed, and clad in loincloth and sleeved mantle of supple deerskin, I was no longer eyed with disdain. From then on, except for the occasional giggle when I made an outrageous mistake in speaking their language, the Rarámuri were courteous and friendly to me. And my exceptional size, if nothing else about me, attracted some speculative, even admiring looks from the village girls and unattached women. It seemed there were more than a few of them who would gladly run for me to chase.

They were almost always running, anyway—all the Rarámuri, male and female, old and young. If they were beyond the age of mere toddling and not yet at the age of doddering, they ran. At all times of day, except for those intervals of immobility when they were occupied with some task, or were sodden with tesguino, or dazzled by the godlight jipuri, they ran. If they were not racing each other in pairs or in groups, they ran alone, back and forth along the floor of the canyon or up and down the slanting canyon walls. The men usually ran while kicking a ball ahead of them, a carved and carefully smoothed round ball of hard wood as big as a man's head. The females usually ran chasing a small hoop of woven straw, each woman carrying a little stick with which she scooped up the circlet on the run and threw it farther on, and the other women ran competing to catch up to it first and throw it next. All that frenetic and incessant commotion appeared purposeless to me, but Tes-disora explained:

"It is partly high spirits and animal energy, but it is more than that. It is an unceasing ceremony in which, through the exertion and sweat expended, we pay homage to our gods Tatevari and Kalaumari and Matinieri."

I found it difficult to imagine any god who could be nourished by perspiration instead of blood, but the Rarámuri have those three whom Tes-disora named: in your language their names would be Grandfather Fire, Mother Water, and Brother Deer. Perhaps the religion recognizes other gods, but those are the only three I never heard mentioned. Considering the simple needs of the forest-dwelling Rarámuri, I suppose those three suffice.

Tes-disora said, "Our constant running shows our creator gods that the people they created are still alive and lively, and grateful to be so. It also keeps our men fit for the rigors of the running hunt. It is also practice for the games you will see—or join in, I hope—during this festival. And those games themselves are only practice."

"Kindly tell me," I sighed, feeling rather wearied just by the talk of so much exertion. "Practice for what?"

"For the real running, of course. The ra-rajipuri." He grinned at the expression on my face. "You will see. It is the grand conclusion of every celebration."

The tes-guinapuri got under way the next day, when the village's entire population gathered outside the riverside wooden house, waiting for the Si-riame to emerge and command that the festivities begin. Everybody was dressed in his finest and most colorfully decorated garments: most of us men in deerskin mantles and loincloths, the females in deerskin skirts and blouses. Some of the villagers had painted their faces with dots and curly lines of a brilliant yellow, and many wore feathers in their hair, though the birds of that northern region do not provide very impressive plumes. Several of Guaguey-bo's veteran hunters were already sweating, for they wore trophies of their prowess: ankle-length robes of cuguar hide or heavy bearskin or the thick coat of the big-horned mountain leaper.

The Si-riame stepped out of the house, dressed entirely in shimmering jaguar hides, holding a staff topped with a knob of raw silver, and I was so astonished that I raised my topaz to make sure of what I was seeing. Having heard that the chief was also sage, sorcerer, judge, and physician, I had naturally expected to see that luminary in the person of an extremely old and solemn-faced man. But it was not a man, and not old, not solemn. She was no older than I, and pretty, and made more pretty by her warm smile.

"Your Si-riame is a woman?" I exclaimed, as she began to intone the ceremonial prayers.

"Why not?" said Tes-disora.

"I never heard of any people choosing to be governed by any but a male."

"Our last Si-riame was a man. But when a Si-riame dies, every other mature man and woman of the village is eligible to succeed. We all gathered together and chewed much jipuri and went into trance. We saw visions, and some of us went running wildly, and others went into convulsions. But that woman was the only one blessed by the god-light. Or at least she was the first to awaken and tell of having seen and talked with Grandfather Fire, with Mother Water and Brother Deer. She indubitably had been shone upon by the god-light, which is the supreme and sole requirement for accession to the office of Si-riame."

The handsome woman finished her chanting, smiled again, and raised her shapely arms aloft in a general benediction, then turned and went back into the house, as the crowd gave her a cheer of affectionate respect.

"She stays in seclusion?" I asked Tes-disora.

"During the festivals, yes," he said, and chuckled. "Sometimes our people misbehave during a tes-guinapuri. They fight among themselves, or they indulge in adulteries, or they commit other mischiefs. The Si-riame is a wise woman: What she does not see or hear about, she does not punish."

I do not know whether it would have been regarded as a mischief, what I intended to do: to chase and catch and couple with the most delectable available sample of Rarámuri womanhood. But, as things happened, I did not exactly do that—and, far from being punished, I was rewarded in a way.

What occurred was that, first, like all the villagers, I made a glutton of myself on venison of various sorts and atóli mush of maize, and I drank heavily of tesguino. Then, almost too heavy to stand, almost too drunk to walk, I tried to join some of the men in one of their ball-kicking runs—but I would have been outclassed by them even if I had been in perfect competing condition. I did not mind. I dropped out to watch a group of females running a hoop and stick game, and a certain nubile girl among them caught my eye. And I mean my one eye; unless I closed the other, I saw two of the same girl. I walked weaving toward her, awkwardly motioning and thickly requesting that she quit the group to essay a different game.