The following material, collected by me during the time I was in command of the post of Fort Ringgold, Texas, may be of interest from the light it throws upon the character of the Mexican population of our extreme southern border, but it is not to be accepted as exhausting the subject of the folklore of that region, which is simply interminable. Other notes, equally extensive, were gathered at the same time in regard to the theatres, ballads, games, and traditions of the people, but it is impossible, on account of their bulk, to present them here. As many of these Mexicans were engaged in armed attacks upon the Mexican territory, and in armed resistance to the American troops sent to suppress them, it became my duty to make as earnest a study of their character and condition as means would permit.

In making these examinations, care was taken to preserve each statement in the words of the witness, but it is believed that what has been lost in elegance of diction has been more than counterbalanced by a faithful representation of the mode of thought of these descendants of Spaniard and Aztec.

In very many cases the full name or the initials of my informant will be found attached to the "cure." The first authority consulted was a most singular personage. Maria Antonia Cavazo de Garza, born in Rio Grande City, had the reputation of being a "bruja," or witch, but she modestly laid claim to being nothing more than a "curandera" (healer), who knew a great deal about "medicinas" which could effect wonderful results—"con el poder de Dios" (with the power of God). She was at the date of my first meeting with her (1891) about sixty-five or seventy years old, had been married four times and borne seventeen children, the youngest of whom, a good-looking boy of nine or ten, and the last husband, always came with her. She had snappy, black eyes, and a varicose, bottle nose, which, in a moment of unguarded enthusiasm, she had attempted to embellish by an application of tincture of iodine.

Alferecia.—To cure "alferecia," or epilepsy, in children, which is due to the moon's influence. Take a newly born pig and rub the naked baby with this (live) pig from head to foot. The baby will break out into a copious perspiration, and the pig will die. But the fact that epilepsy is a brain trouble seems to be dimly recognized. Maria Antonia says that the child's skull breaks in four pieces (in form of a cross +), and the child then dies.

The pig being an animal introduced from Europe, it would be ​well to examine into the superstitions of the Old World in regard to this matter, and we should then see that they have been transplanted to this side of the ocean. Saint Anthony is the friend and patron of the pig in Italy as he is in Mexico, and in the churches of both countries his statue may be seen with his faithful porcine adjunct by his side. Much interesting information on this point is to be extracted from "The Golden Bough" of James G. Frazer, London, 1890.

Amulets and Talismans (Votive Offerings).—Maria Antonia wore at her neck a "miraculous" package which I persuaded her to open. It was made up of a "miraculous" prayer, printed on paper, which had been broken up and reduced to a pulp by the action of time, and of a small piece of blessed wax from one of the candles which had burned upon the altar while mass was going on.

To cure Asthma ("Orguilla").—Take a talcoyote (badger), bake it in the oven until perfectly dry, grind it up, mix on a "metate" with clean flour, add a stew made of the Rio Grande jackdaw, locally known as the orraca, add a trifle of sugar, and put a little of the above mixture in the patient's food. Give in the moon's first quarter. When the moon ends, the disease will end. All diseases which have had their beginning with a new moon can be made to go out with a waning moon. (Maria Antonia.)

Asthma.—Make a drink of hot water and the ripe (black) beans of the ebony roasted. (M. A.)

Some people smoke "mariguan" or Indian hemp, in their cigarritos.

Axolotl.—The most curious and incomprehensible superstition of the Mexican people, and one which has the widest dissemination, concerns the curious lizard called the axolotl, a name by which it was known to the Aztecs, although I do not feel prepared to say that they had the superstition concerning it.

The axolotl frequents damp, slimy places, near pools or tanks of water, and all kinds of refuse ("basura").

It will enter the person of a woman, at certain times, and will remain just as long as would a human foetus.

Young girls, at their first change of life, are especially exposed, and will manifest all the symptoms of pregnancy.

It is within the limits of probability, although I am not sufficiently posted in medical matters to assert that such is the case, that a badly nourished girl would be susceptible to cold, rheumatism, and dropsy at such a critical moment in her life, and that imagination could supply any features that might be lacking to make the romance complete. There are several remedies; one calls for a liberal fomentation with hot goat's milk, and in the other, a young ​man appears to marry the girl. Often when women were bathing in the waters of the Rio Grande itself, or in some of the great "acequias," mischievous boys would yell "Axolotl!" and cause a scampering of all the bathers.

Among the Italian peasantry notions of this same kind obtain: "When a man wishes his wife to be faithful, he should take sperma illius mulieris and put it in a bottle, and then catch a lizard with the left hand and put it in the same bottle, and cork up both very tightly and say:—

Then be careful not to lose the bottle." "Roman Etruscan Remains," Charles G. Leland, New York, Scribners, 1891, page 292. He traces this superstition back to the time of the Roman poet, Marcellus, from whom he quotes.

The following may be included in the same category, although it is expressed very obscurely, and I find it difficult to clearly understand:—

"Il y avait une fois une jeune fille qui, toutes les nuits, allait coucher dans le foin. Chacun lui disait:

"'Parie que le faudonx ira te fauder!'

"Mais elle n'y faisait pas attention et elle retournait coucher dans le sends (grenier à foin). Pourtant le faudoux venait la fouler, et elle disait à ses voisins:

"Je ne sais ce que j'ai: je suis plus lassée au matin qu'en me couchant.

"Nous te l'avions bien dit, répondaient-ils, c'est le faudoux qui vient te fauder."

And much more of the same import. Paul Sébillot (Vannes, France): "Additions aux Coutumes, etc., de la Haute Bretagne," in "Revue des Traditions Populaires," Paris, 1892.

guinea pig