33.8 America: a.d. 1801 to 1900  (Page 27/31)

The Zunis of the Southwest were very intractable and had repelled the Spaniards in earlier years, time and time again. Palmer (Ref. 165 ) says that they derived originally from two parental stocks, one from the north and one from the southwest, but their language is distinct and intelligible to no other Indian tribe. They have succeeded in preserving their myths and traditions in a "series of sacred epics, a sort of inchoate Bible"

The Ute, Comanche, Hopi and Pima Shoshonean languages are related to the Nahautl group of languages of Mexico, which includes Aztec. Some of these Shoshonean Athapascan groups had early been isolated by mountains and deserts. The Mohave, who tattooed their bodies and wore practically no clothes, along with the Yuma, formed a connecting link with the southwest tribes. They had rafts and planked canoes sealed with asphalt.

In the far west, the Yuroks and Hupa (also Hoopa) of northern California, like the northwest coastal Indians, were highly civilized, using bows and arrows, body armor of thick elk hide and dugout canoes with 6 to 8- paddles that could even be used in the ocean. They ate salmon, mussels, seaweed (for salt), whale meat and acorns. The latter were dried, pounded into meal, treated with hot water to remove the tannic acid and then cooked in closely woven baskets, with stirring, until a tasteless gruel resulted. They grew and smoked tobacco. Although those two California tribes spoke- entirely different languages, they were friendly and cooperative with each other. The Hupa, living along the Trinity River, did not even know of white men until the gold rush days of 1850. (Ref. 165 )

MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

The Mexican Revolution actually began in 1810 when Miguel Hidalgo, a priest, called on his Indian followers to rise against their local rulers. Spanish rule had already deteriorated as Napoleon had subdued Spain. But Mexico City was even then a rich capital, with caravans of mules with noisy bells, carrying merchandise and maize flour daily to the city. (Ref. 260 ) Various governors appeared and disappeared in Mexico in that time of struggle between classes and among ambitious, selfish, military men. The Mexicans copied the United States constitution in 1824 almost exactly, but they could not make it function properly because of constant collisions of state and national sovereignties, with the result that by the 1830s they had alternated between anarchy and military despotism. (Ref. 217 ) War with Texas in 1835 and with the United States in 1845-48 resulted in the loss of much land. (See pages 1157 and 1158). Mexico had 30 presidents in its first 50 years. (Ref. 8 ) Benito Juarez, a Zapotec Indian, finally came into power and tried to improve his country's economic situation and lessen the political power of the Church, but that era was interrupted by Napoleon III's placing the Austrian Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico, supported by French troops, in opposition to Juarez. By 1867, however, Juarez had run the French out and subordinated church and state to a secular administration. As the French deserted, Maximilian was captured and shot. The last third of the century saw Porfirio Diaz as dictator of Mexico, when the liberals had been unable to give Mexico prosperity. Diaz allowed spectacular economic progress, but with foreign capital and leaving the populace poorer than ever. (Ref. 8 )