| OCR Text |
BY PATH AND TRAIL. 7 until you grant our conditions, until you settle with, us, no Mexican, no American will work the mines or till the soil in our land." And who are these men who challenge the strength of Mexico? Who and what are the Yaquis! Before coming to Sonora I endeavored to inform myself on the history of this extraordinary ' tribe, for, like the Roman Terence, whatever is human interests me " homo sum, kumani nih. il a me alienum puto." I had read in the American and Mexican newspapers, from time to time, terrible things about this mountain tribe. I read in " El Mundo," a Mexican paper of, the date of Febru ary 28, 1907, that " a Yaqui Indian who had just emptied a fifteen- pound can of cyanide of potassium into the mu nicipal waterworks reservoir at Hermosillo was caught in the act and shot by the authorities. A new terror is added to the situation in the Sonora country since the Yaquis have learned the deadly nature of the poison which is so largely used in mining operations and is so easily accessible to desperadoes like the Yaquis." Late in December, 1907, I read in another paper published in Torin: " A marauding band of Yaquis entered the vil lage of Lencho, killed six men and two women and wounded four other Mexicans. As soon as the firing was heard at Torin, three miles from where the massacre oc curred and where 2,000 troops are stationed, General Lorenzo Torres took the field in pursuit of the Yaquis. The soldiers will remain out until the Indians are killed or captured." Killed or captured! Well, for 400 years of knowrutime the Spanish or Mexican troops have, with occasional periods of truce, been killing and capturing this solitary tribe, and strange to relate the warriors of the tribe will not stay killed or captured. On June 12, |
