The manners, customs, religious conceptions, and daily life of all these Indians are very similar, though among the Indians of British Honduras, who come more closely in contact with outside influences, old customs are dying out, and old ideas and methods are being superseded by new. The language of the tribes here considered, with slight local dialectical variations, is the same; all are of the same physical type; in fact, there can be little doubt that they are the direct descendants of those Maya who occupied the peninsula of Yucatan at the time of the conquest. Physically, though short they are robust and well proportioned. The men average 5 feet 2 inches to 5 feet 3 inches in height, the women about 2 inches less. The skin varies in color from almost white to dark bronze. The hair of both sexes is long, straight, coarse, black, and luxuriant on the head, where it extends very low over the forehead, but is almost entirely absent from other parts of the body. The women usually wear their hair hanging down the back in two plaits. Their faces are round and full, with rather high cheek bones; the skull is highly brachicephalic in type. The following indices were taken from a small number of Santa Cruz Indians, mostly males of middle age:

The eyes are large and dark brown, the ears small and closely applied to the head, the nose rather broad, and the jaw prognathous. The mouth is fairly large and the teeth excellent, though toward middle age they become greatly worn down in many individuals from eating corn cake impregnated with grit from the stone metate, and from the same cause they are frequently much incrusted with tartar. The figure in both sexes is short and broad. The long bones and the extremities are small and delicate. Both men and women are, however, capable of considerable and prolonged exertion. The former can carry loads of 150 pounds for 20 miles in the macapal (tab), a netted bag which is slung over the back and held up by a band passing round the forehead, while the latter can work for hours at a time grinding corn on the metate without apparent fatigue. Many of the younger women would be considered very good looking, measured by the most exacting standard, though they reach maturity at an early age, and deteriorate in appearance very rapidly after marriage, the face becoming wrinkled and the figure squat and shapeless. In walking the men bend the body forward from the hips, keep the eyes fixed upon the ground, and turn the toes in, habits acquired from carrying the macapal on all occasions. So accustomed have they become to this contrivance that many of them, when starting on a journey of even a couple of miles, rather than go unloaded, prefer to weight the macapal with a few stones as a counterpoise to the habitual forward inclination of their bodies above the hips. Children begin carrying small macapals at a very early age, and it is probably to this habit and not, as Landa suggests, to the custom among the women of carrying their children astride the hip that the prevalence of bowlegs (kulba ok) among the Indians is due. These people have a peculiar and indescribable odor, rather pleasant than otherwise; it is not affected by washing or exercise, is much stronger in some individuals than in others, and is perceptible in both sexes and at all ages. The women are, on the whole, both physically and mentally superior to the men, and when dressed in gala costume for a "baile" with spotlessly clean, beautifully embroidered garments, all the gold ornaments they possess or can borrow, and often a coronet of fire beetles, looking like small electric lamps in their hair, they present a very attractive picture. They are polite and hospitable, though rather shy with strangers; indeed in the remoter villages they often rush into the bush and hide themselves at the approach of anyone not known to them, especially if the men are away working in the milpas. They are very fond of gossip and readily appreciate a joke, especially one of a practical nature, though till one gets to know them fairly well they appear dull and phlegmatic. When quarreling among themselves both women and girls use the most disgusting and obscene language, improvising as they go along, with remarkable quick-wittedness, not binding themselves down to any conventional oaths or forms of invective, but pouring out a stream of vituperation and obscenity to meet each case, which strikes with unerring fidelity the weak points in the habits, morals, ancestry, and personal appearance of their opponents. The young girls are as bad as, if not worse than, the older women, for whom they seem to have no respect. They are extremely clean in their persons, and wash frequently, though with regard to their homes they are not nearly so particular as hens, dogs, pigs, and children roll about together promiscuously on the floor, and fleas, lice, and jiggers abound only too frequently. The description given by Landa (chap. XXXII, p. 192) of the Indian women at the time of the conquest applies equally well to their descendants of the present day:

Emborachavanse tambiÉn ellas con los combites, aunque por si, como comian por si, y no se emborachavan tanto como los hombres.... Son avisadas y corteses y conversables, con que se entienden, y a maravilla bien partidas. Tienen poco secreto y no son tan limpias en sus personas ni en sus cosas con quanto se lavan como los ermiÑos.

The women are very industrious, rising usually at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning to prepare the day's supply of tortillas or corn cake. During the day they prepare tobacco (kutz) and make cigarettes; gather cotton (taman), which they spin (kuch), weave (sakal), and embroider for garments; weave mats of palm leaf and baskets (xush) of a variety of liana (ak); make pottery (ul), and cotton and henequen cord, of which they construct hammocks (kan). In addition to these tasks they do the family cooking and washing, look after the children, and help their husbands to attend to the animals. Till late at night the women may be seen spinning, embroidering, and hammock-making by the light of a native candle or a small earthenware cuhoon-nut oil lamp, meanwhile laughing and chatting gayly over the latest village scandal, the older ones smoking cigarettes, while the men squat about on their low wooden stools outside the house gravely discussing the weather, the milpas, the hunting, or the iniquities of the Alcalde. Among the Indian women of British Honduras the old customs are rapidly dying out; spinning and weaving are no longer practiced, pottery making has been rendered unnecessary by the introduction of cheap iron cooking pots and earthenware, candles have given place to mineral oil lamps, and even the metate is being rapidly superseded by small American hand mills for grinding the corn. The men's time is divided between agriculture, hunting, fishing, and boat and house building, though at times they undertake tasks usually left to the women, as mat and basket making, and even spinning and weaving. The Indians of British Honduras who live near settlements do light work for the rancheros and woodcutters; they have the reputation of being improvident and lazy, and of leaving their work as soon as they have acquired sufficient money for their immediate needs, and this is to some extent true, as the Indian always wants to invest his cash in something which will give an immediate return in pleasure or amusement. The men are silent, though not sullen, very intelligent in all matters which concern their own daily life, but singularly incurious as to anything going on outside of this. They are civil, obliging, and good-tempered, and make excellent servants, when they can be got to work, but appear to be for the most part utterly lacking in ambition or in any desire to accumulate wealth with which to acquire comforts and luxuries not enjoyed by their neighbors. It happens occasionally that an individual does perforce acquire wealth, as in the case of the head chief of the IcaichÈ Indians, who was paid a salary by the Mexican Government to keep his people quiet, and royalties on chicle cut on his lands by various contractors. He accumulated a considerable sum, all in gold coin, which he stored in a large demijohn and hid in the bush. At his death, as no one knew the place where the demijohn was buried, the money was permanently lost. They are remarkably skillful at finding their way in the bush by the shortest route from point to point, possessing a faculty in this respect which amounts almost to an instinct; they are skillful also at following the tracks of men and animals in the bush by means of very slight indications, as broken twigs and disturbed leaves, imperceptible to an ordinary individual. The men are very stoical in bearing pain. I have removed both arms at the shoulder joints, with no other surgical instrument than a long butcher's knife, and no anesthetic except several drinks of rum, for an Indian, crushed between the rollers of a native sugar mill, without his uttering a single complaint. The Indians are undoubtedly cruel, but not wantonly so, as the shocking acts of cruelty reported as being perpetrated by them from time to time are usually by way of reprisal for similar or worse acts on the part of the Mexicans. Before the rising of the Indians in 1848, they were throughout this part of Yucatan practically in a state of slavery, and were often treated by their Spanish masters with the utmost barbarity. As an instance of this it is recorded of a well-known merchant of Bacalar that he was in the habit of burying his Indian servants in the ground to the neck, with their heads shaved, exposed to the hot sun; their heads were then smeared with molasses and the victims were left to the ants; and this punishment was inflicted for no very serious offense. It is hardly to be wondered at that such treatment left in the Indians' hearts an undying hatred for their masters which, when in their turn they gained the ascendancy, found vent in acts of the most horrible cruelty—flogging, burning, mutilation, and even crucifixion.

Dress

The men wear hats of platted palm leaf, which they make themselves; those woven from coarse split palm leaf are known as xani pok, those of very fine leaf, like Panama hats, bear the name bomi pok (pl. 1). They wear cotton trousers (eex), or in some sections short cotton drawers (xkulex), with a short, loose, shirt-like jacket of cotton hanging outside the trousers. On the feet they use sandals of danta hide (xanapkeuel) held in place by a leather or henequen thong passing between the great and second toes and around the back of the heel to the front of the instep, where it is fastened. Formerly the cotton was grown, spun, and woven at home, but nowadays it is giving place to cheap imported English and American goods, while the sandals are being superseded by moccasins and even by imported shoes. The moccasins the Indians make themselves, tanning the hides (usually of deer or antelope) in lime and red mangrove bark and stitching the parts together with thin strips of leather. These moccasins, which are made on crude wooden lasts, are very comfortable and wear well.

The women wear two garments of cotton; the huipil (yuptÈ), a loose short-sleeved blouse, cut square at the neck, and reaching nearly to the knees, and a short skirt reaching to between the knee and the ankle, known as a pik. The neck, the lower border, and the armholes of the blouse and the edge of the skirt were formerly beautifully embroidered in varicolored floral and geometrical devices; now, however, cotton manufactured in England or the United States and stamped in colors to imitate the original embroidery is rapidly coming into use. The women formerly went barefooted or wore loose slippers; now they frequently wear imported shoes, often with high heels, a feature which renders their walk and carriage awkward and stilted. They often go bareheaded, but sometimes wear a sort of shawl (bostch) around the head and shoulders. Many of them wear large round or oval plaques of gold (tup) in the ears, survivals, probably, of the enormous round ear disks worn by the ancient Maya (fig. 2).

Some of the women wear long gold chains, with religious medallions attached, while the smaller children wear a variety of curious objects, as small coins, shells, beads, dried seeds, and berries, with figurines in wood, stone, pottery, and metal, strung round their necks. Many of these are worn as charms or amulets to protect the wearer against diseases, accidents, or evil spirits, or to bring good luck. A charm worn by nearly all children consists of a small cross of tancasche bark (fig. 3) which is regarded as a sovereign remedy for flatulence, a complaint from which, owing to the nature of their diet, nearly all suffer.

Industrial Activities

AGRICULTURE

Of all the arts practiced by the Indian, agriculture is by far the most important; indeed the greater part of his time and labor are devoted to the milpa (kol), or corn plantation, which affords him his principal means of livelihood, for if the corn crop fails he knows that actual starvation will menace his family until the next crop is gathered. The virgin bush, in which the milpa is made, is cut down about December or January, only the large and hardwood trees being left standing. This is the most arduous part of the work, and the neighbors often assist in it, being helped in turn when making their own milpas. The bush is allowed to dry until the end of May (the dry season lasting from January to May), when it is burned off. After the burnt area has been cooled by the first shower of rain it is planted in corn (ixim). This is a simple operation, two or three men going over the ground, each with a bag of corn and a sharp-pointed stick, making small holes at fairly regular intervals, into each of which they drop a few grains of corn, and then cover them with earth. About October the corn begins to ripen, whereupon each stalk is bent about a foot below the ear and allowed to hang down for several days in order that rain may not gain entrance and spoil the grain in the final stages of ripening. During this period the owner spends nearly all his time in the milpa, sleeping there in a little palm-leaf shack at night, since many animals, as deer and wild hogs, are very fond of corn, which is subject to raids also by neighboring Indians and by tame pigs from the village. When the corn is ripe, it is stored, still in the husk, upon a low platform, in a small house specially built for the purpose, often, in order to avoid transportation, situated within the milpa. It is shelled as required for use, the surplus from that eaten by the family and stock being exchanged at the nearest village for cash or for cotton cloth, rum, iron cooking pots, ammunition, and other luxuries. The shelling is done by rubbing the husked ear against a rough flat surface, made by binding a number of corncobs (bacal) together into a circle with liana. Many fruits and vegetables besides corn are grown in the milpa, including yams (xaci macal), camote (is), pumpkins (kuum), squashes (xka), tomatoes (paak), plantains (haz), colalu (xterkoch), aguacate (on), plums (abal), oranges (pakaal), siricote (kopte), sapodillas (ya), mamai (chacal haz), okra, garden egg, melon, breadfruit, sweet lime, pineapple, and a variety of others.

PROCURING FOOD; COOKING

Both men and women take for the first meal of the day a hot thick drink known as posol, made from ground corn and water, often flavored with honey; later they eat tortillas, beans, and chili pepper, accompanied with a cold drink made from corn. In the evening they make their principal repast, which includes game, pork, fish, or eggs, with beans and other vegetables, plenty of chili pepper, and either chocolate or some hot drink made from corn. They use a great variety of drinks concocted of ground maize and water, including chocosacan, a solution of the masa from which tortillas are made, in water, flavored with a little salt; pinol, a solution of ground toasted corn seasoned with pimento and other spices; posol, boiled corn ground to a paste and mixed with hot water; sachÀ, very much like posol, but the corn is not cooked soft, so that the beverage is gritty; and, lastly, atol, which is chocosacan boiled till the mixture becomes thick and glutinous.

Tortillas, or corn cake, sometimes eaten hot, sometimes cold, and at times toasted, are the Indian's chief mainstay in the way of food, as they appear at every meal, and at a pinch he can exist on them alone for a very long period. Tortillas are made in the following way: The grain is first soaked overnight in a lye of wood ashes, treatment which softens the grain and loosens the outer husk. The softened grain is next ground into a fine paste on an oblong stone, slightly concave, known as a metate (ka), by means of a stone rolling pin thicker in the middle than at the ends, designated as a brazo (u kabka). This procedure takes considerable time, as the grain has to be ground a number of times in order to get the paste to the required degree of fineness. When the paste or masa is ready it is flattened by hand into small round cakes (tortillas), which are baked on an iron or earthen plaque (xamach) over a glowing wood fire.

The hunters are experts at barbecuing (macan) the carcasses of various birds and animals, chiefly deer, peccary, wild turkey, and curassow, as they often get a large supply of game when several days' journey from the village, which, unless preserved in some way, would quickly spoil. The carcasses are cut into joints; the birds plucked, cleaned, and split open; and the meat thus prepared is hung in a small palm-leaf shack rendered as nearly airtight as possible, upon the floor of which is kindled a fire of damp cedar chips. These give off some heat and great quantities of aromatic smoke, so that in about 24 hours the meat is sufficiently cured to last for several weeks. Meat prepared in this way is considered a great delicacy. If it is wished to preserve the meat for longer periods the process is prolonged and salt may be rubbed in. Strips of meat and carcasses of birds may sometimes be seen hanging from the rafters over the fire in the kitchen so desiccated, hard, and blackened that it would appear impossible to eat them; but after months of drying this meat, when soaked in warm water for 24 hours, is not unpalatable. The Indians wash their hands before and after eating, a very necessary practice, as they eat exclusively with their fingers, using the tortillas to scoop up gravy, beans, and other mushy foodstuffs. They eat at small round tables about 16 inches high, sitting, or rather squatting, around them on little blocks of wood 4 to 5 inches high. They are very fond of salt, which among the coast Indians is obtained by evaporating sea water, among the inland villages by trade from Yucatan and Guatemala. Since this supply has been almost cut off, owing to the troubles with Mexico, the Indians frequently use for salt the ashes obtained by burning botan tops. Men and women do not eat together, as the women are preparing relays of hot tortillas for the men while the meal lasts. Their food and mode of eating is well described by Landa (chap. XXI, p. 120):

Que por la maÑana toman la bebida caliente con pimienta, como esta dicho y entre dia las otras frias, y a la noche los guisados. Y que si no ay carne hazen sus salsas de la pimienta y legumbres. Que no acostumbravan comer los hombres con las mugeres, y que ellos comian por si en el suelo, o quando mucho sobre una serilla por mesa: y que comen bien quando lo tienen, y quando no, sufren muy bien la hambre y passan con muy poco. Y que se lavan las manos y la boca despues de comer.

Indeed, the foregoing description would apply almost as well to Indians of the more remote villages of the present day as to those of the time immediately after the conquest. In localities where they have come in contact with more civilized communities their menu has been considerably enlarged by the introduction of imported foodstuffs, while their methods of eating have been changed by the introduction of knives, forks, and spoons. The native methods of cooking are very primitive. Three large flat stones so placed as to form an equilateral triangle, known as koben, form the only fireplace; in this is kindled the fire of sticks or split logs, over which is placed the earthenware or iron cooking pots or plaque for baking tortillas, resting on the stones. Fire (kaak) is usually obtained through the use of matches among the Indians of British Honduras. Hunters and others who spend a great part of their time in the bush employ flint and steel. Among the Indians in the remote villages fire is still made by swiftly rotating a sharp-pointed shaft of some hardwood (usually dogwood) in a hole made in a small slab of very light dry wood (commonly gumbo limbo). There is no chimney to the kitchen, the smoke finding its way out as best it can through the doors and crevices in the walls; consequently the whole of the interior, with its permanent furnishings, is colored a fine rich brown.

HUNTING

It must be admitted that the Indian is no sportsman in the pursuit of game, the claims of the pot being always paramount. He rarely shoots at a flying bird unless to fire into the midst of a flock of parrots or wild ducks, and when after the larger game he waits till he can deliver the contents of his gun point-blank into some vital part. This practice may be due partly to the limitations of his weapon, which till recent years consisted of a muzzle-loading section of gas pipe, nearly as dangerous when discharged to the hunter as to the game, and partly to the fact that the bush is usually so dense that an animal, if not shot at point-blank range, can not be gotten at all. It is probably not more than four generations since the use of the bow and arrow died out among the Indians in the western part of British Honduras, as old men among them have told me that they could remember seeing a few still in use when they were very young. The flint arrowheads, they said, were obtained down the Mopan River. This seems quite possible, as at Baker's, not far from Belize, there is an outcrop of flint, where, judging by the great heaps of fresh-looking chips and rejects still in existence, a considerable "factory" must have existed at a comparatively recent date. Some of these old men could still make fairly serviceable bows and arrows, the heads of the latter being cut from hardwood.

The principal game animals of this region are the deer (ke), two species of wild hog, the warri and peccary (kekem), gibnut (halib), armadillo (vetsh), wild turkey (kutz), parrot (tut), pigeons of various kinds (mucui), curassow (kambul), quam (cosh), quail (num), and partridge (mankolom). Besides these, birds in great variety, reptiles, and mammals are killed and eaten from time to time, including plovers, garzas, toucans, water hens, wild ducks, and chichalacas. The iguana (tolok) is eaten by the Indians in the west of British Honduras, as are also the woula (ochkan), a large constrictor snake, and the rattlesnake, known as the cazon i kash, or "little shark of the woods." Turtles (sacak) are often captured along the east coast of Yucatan and the adjacent islands, and their eggs in the breeding season form a great delicacy for the Santa Cruz Indians living in the neighborhood of Tuluum. Hicatee (ak) and bucatora are caught in great numbers in all the rivers and lagoons. The tiger (balam), puma (coh), picote (chic), monkey (maash), tapir (tzimin), squirrel (kuuk), cane rat (tŠo), and other animals are hunted from time to time, either for their skins or flesh. Deer are secured in considerable numbers in the rutting season by imitating their call with a wooden whistle (fig. 6); they are also found in the milpas, just after the burning, where they come to lick the slightly saline ashes. At this time the owners build platforms on poles 10 to 12 feet high, on top of which they spend the whole night in an extremely cramped and uncomfortable position, waiting for deer or other game to approach near enough for an easy shot. A favorite method of hunting the larger game animals is to go out at night with a split-pine torch attached to the hat; this attracts animals of all kinds, whose eyes may be seen gleaming in the dark, affording an easy mark, though not infrequently a neighbor's errant pig pays the penalty of curiosity.

Traps of two kinds are in common use. One employed to snare larger game is constructed in the following way: A path frequented by game in going to and from a watering place is found; along this is dug a shallow trench opposite a good springy young sapling; two stakes are driven in, one on each side of the trench, the one farthest from the tree being crooked at the top. A piece of henequen cord, provided with a noose at one end, and with a stick long enough to extend from one stake to the other, firmly tied by its middle above the noose, is attached to the top of the sapling by its other end. The sapling is then bent down and held in place by the stick above the noose, which is fixed lightly between the crook in one stake and the stake opposite to it, the loop hanging suspended between the two. Lastly, a number of sticks and leaves are scattered lightly over the trench and beside the stakes and loop. Animals coming along the run are very apt to put their necks in the loop, and by pulling on this, to release the cross stick, whereupon they are immediately suspended in the air by the jerking back of the bent sapling. Animals of all sizes, from rabbits to tigers, are caught in traps of this kind, the strength and adaptability of which vary with the size of the bent tree and the adjustment of the noose. Another trap, used only for small animals, consists of an oblong cage made of split bamboo or cabbage bark. Over the opening, which is in the top, rests an accurately balanced strip of board, baited at one end with corn. When the animal endeavors to reach the bait it is precipitated into the trap, and the board swings back into place, covering the exit. Before they obtain guns the boys use slings, with which they can throw pebbles with remarkable force and accuracy, bringing down birds, squirrels, and other small game. They keep many tame animals, some for food, others as pets, including pigs, dogs, cats, peccaries, gibnuts, rabbits, quashes, nicos de noche, and squirrels; also birds, as parrots, doves, quam, curassow, chichalaca, sinsonte, pavo real, and many others.

FISHING

Many fish are found in the coastal waters, in the rivers, and in the lagoons of the interior, including cazones, tarpon, skipjacks, snappers, eels, baracoudas, stone bass, cobarli, jewfish, tubers, bay snooks, river snooks, and a variety of others. They are caught with hook and line, in cast and seine nets, in traps, and by spearing or harpooning. Fish traps are cylindrical in shape, with a funnel-shaped opening at each end, the apex of the funnel pointing toward the center of the trap, so that entrance is easy but exit very difficult. The traps, made of split bamboo, are placed upon the bottoms of rivers or lagoons, baited with "masa," which attracts multitudes of the tiny fish there abounding; these in their turn attract larger fish, which enter the trap in pursuit of the small fry and are captured. Harpooning at night by the light of a split-pine torch is about the nearest approach to real sport which the Indian enjoys; this is usually done near the bar of a river, on a calm dark night, by three men in a canoe, one paddling, one holding the torch, and the third wielding the harpoon. This implement consists of a slender cane 10 to 12 feet in length provided with a sharp barbed spindle-shaped steel head, fitting into the hollow at one end, so that on striking the fish the head parts from the shaft to which it is attached by a cord held in the hand of the harpooner. The fish are attracted by the light of the torch, and the harpooner strikes at the swirl which they make alongside the dory. Harpooning is rather an exciting form of sport, as it is impossible to tell what sort of fish has been struck until it is landed. Hicatee and bucatora are harpooned with an unbarbed triangular point, this giving the best hold on their tough shells; they are captured also by spreading small nets in the vicinity of the stumps and holes along the river banks, which they frequent.

CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES AND FURNITURE

The Indians construct their houses in the following manner: First a number of straight trees about 8 inches in diameter at the base and crotched at the top are selected in the bush for posts. These are usually Santa Maria, chichem, sapodilla, or some hardwood. They are cut down, and after having been peeled are dragged to the site of the new house, where they are firmly planted, one at each of the four corners and others, the number depending on the size of the house, at short intervals between in the lines of the walls. In the crotches other slightly smaller poles 5 to 6 inches in diameter, also peeled, are laid; to these are attached still smaller poles, which run up to the ridgepole (honache), forming rafters (uinciche). All this framework is firmly bound together by means of ropes of liana (fig. 7). Rows of long thin pliable sticks are next bound round the rafters, and to these are attached layer upon layer of "huana" (shaan) leaves till a thatch, sometimes 18 inches thick and quite impervious to rain, is formed (pl. 4).

The walls between the posts are filled in with "tasistas," a small palm trunk, or in some cases with strips of split cabbage palm. The outer sides of the walls may be daubed with a mixture of mud and hair, or of chopped fiber (pakloom), and whitewashed, or they may be thatched with palm leaves. The floor is made of marl dust pounded down to a flat hard surface.

Doors and windows may be made of wickerwork of liana, of split cabbage palm, or of a frame of sticks thatched with palm leaves. When a man undertakes the building of a new house his neighbors usually help him, and the residence is ready for occupancy in a few days, as all the materials are growing ready to hand in the neighboring forest, and require only cutting down and assembling. The facility with which their dwellings are constructed, and the difficulty in getting more than one or two crops in succession from each plantation, with their primitive agricultural methods, probably account for the frequent changes in site which one notices in Indian villages. As the lands in one neighborhood become impoverished, the population has a tendency gradually to desert the old village, and start a new one in a more favorable locality.

The kitchen, which is a replica of the house on a small scale, is usually placed a few yards behind it.

The furniture is of the simplest, consisting of a small round cedar table, with a little bowl-shaped projection which contains a lump of masa when tortillas are being made and chili peppers or salt at mealtimes. The seats are mere blocks of wood, 3 or 4 inches high (caanche), with perhaps one or two more pretentious low hollow-backed wooden chairs covered with deer skin or "tiger" skin. A number of calabashes of all shapes and sizes, with a few earthen water jars, iron cooking pots, and plaques for baking tortillas, are found in all houses. Hammocks (kÁan) of cotton or henequen fiber are always conspicuous articles of furniture, as they are slung all around the room, making it very difficult to move about in it when they are let down. In many houses contact with the hammocks is not desirable, as lice have a habit of leaving the body of the hammock during the day and secreting themselves in the knots between the body and the arms, whence they may transfer themselves to the garments of the unwary. If the hammock is large the father and mother often sleep in one, their heads at opposite ends, while the smaller children, frequently to the number of three or four, occupy another. There can be no such thing as privacy, as the whole family commonly sleep, live, and eat in a single room, which at most is divided into two apartments by a flimsy cotton curtain. A prominent object in most Indian houses is an altar (canche), or high square table, upon which stands a wooden cross (fig. 8). The altar is covered with a cotton cloth, embroidered in flowers and religious symbols; the cross is draped with ribbon or strips of colored fabric, and sometimes with crude models, in silver or gold, of legs, arms, and hands, representing thank offerings to some favorite Santo for the healing of corresponding parts of the body. Little images in wax, and, if the Indian can obtain them, religious oleographs and medallions, with colored-glass vases, are commonly found upon the altar, which is frequently dressed with fresh flowers.

The Indian's only tool is his machete, a heavy cutlass-like knife, about 16 inches long; with this he cuts and cleans his milpa, makes his house and most of his furniture, digs postholes, and fights and defends himself.

His indispensable belongings consist of a hammock, a few calabashes and pots, a machete, and a cotton suit, all of which he can carry slung over his back in a macapal; with his wife and dogs trotting behind him, he can leave his old home and seek pastures new with a light heart and untroubled mind, knowing that the bush will provide for all his needs.

POTTERY MAKING

Pottery making is rapidly dying out through the greater part of this area, owing to the importation of more convenient and durable vessels. It is undertaken almost exclusively by the older women, who employ a fine light yellow clay mixed with sand or powdered quartz. They make vessels in considerable variety, both as to size and shape, which are used for the storage of water and dry material, as corn, beans, and achiote, and as cooking pots. They do not use a potter's wheel, but mold the smaller utensils by hand and build up the larger by the addition of fragment upon fragment of clay. The outside is smoothed over with a little wooden spade-like implement. No polish, glaze, or paint is applied to the pottery, either inside or out; the highest effort at decoration resulting in merely a few incised lines just below the neck, or a rough scalloping around the rim. The pottery is burned in a clear, open wood fire; when completed the ware is known as ul.

BOAT BUILDING

The Indians living in the neighborhood of lakes and rivers possess dories or canoes which vary in size from tiny craft 5 to 6 feet long by 16 to 18 inches beam, capable of holding only a single individual, to large craft 25 feet or more in length, large enough to hold a dozen people. All their canoes are constructed by the simple process of hollowing out large logs, the more durable ones being made from cedar, the lighter ones from wild cotton (yaxche).

The boats are pointed, bow and stern, and when steel tools are available to their makers the lines are often very graceful. Many of the boats, however, follow to some extent the contours of the logs from which they were made, being exceedingly clumsy and difficult to manage. On the rivers and lakes the only method of propulsion is by means of a broad-bladed cedar paddle about 5 feet long, or, where the water is shallow and the bottom hard, a long pole. Both men and women have acquired considerable dexterity in paddling and can keep it up at a 4-mile-an-hour gait from early morning till late at night, with very short intervals for refreshment. They use their canoes for trading corn, vegetables, lime, and live stock among villages along the river banks, for line fishing, spearing, and netting, and for getting from place to place. On the large lagoons and along the seacoast they sometimes use the pole to support a lug sail.

SPINNING AND WEAVING

Spinning (kuch) is done by means of a spindle (hechech) of hardwood, 12 to 14 inches long, weighted about 3 inches from the bottom with a hardwood or pottery ring (pl. 5). The upper end is revolved by the finger and thumb of the right hand, which are constantly rubbed on a piece of stonelike substance, made from deerskin burned and ground to a powder, to prevent them from sticking (fig. 9). The cotton (taman) may be held in the left hand, or on the shoulder; the lower end of the spindle rests in a small calabash (luch), which is cemented into a support of woven liana (met), the luch and met together being known as toh (fig. 10).

Weaving is done on a simple loom consisting of a cloth beam and yarn beam (xunche) of light strong wood, connected by the warp (cheil) (pl. 6). The cloth beam is attached round the back of the weaver by a thick henequen cord (yamal), enabling him to tighten the warp at will by simply leaning backward. The yarn beam is usually attached to a doorpost. The shuttle (botosh) consists of a light stick, pointed at both ends, on which the weft is wound obliquely. All the alternate warp strands may be raised together by means of a heddle (mamacche) consisting of a number of loops attached to a rod, each loop passing round a warp strand, so that when the rod is raised the warp threads are raised with it. The lease rods (halahteh) consist of splints of hard heavy wood, usually sapodilla, 2 to 3 inches broad, one-third of an inch thick in the center, with sharp edges and pointed ends. A loose rod (toboche) about the size of the yarn beam is used to roll up the completed material (yoch). The loom for cotton cloth is usually 2¹/₂ to 3 feet broad, but much smaller looms are frequently used for narrower strips of material.

MINOR INDUSTRIES

Tobacco Curing

The tobacco leaves are hung in bunches, often under the roof of the corn house, in the milpa, in a free current of air, till they are thoroughly dry; they are then powdered in a shallow basin, or the bottom cut from a large calabash, and mixed with the leaves of the chiohle, a species of vanilla, which gives a distinctive flavor and fragrance to the tobacco; finally the mixture is rolled into cigarettes (chiople) in a covering of corn husk (coloch).

Basket and Mat Weaving

Baskets are woven from a special thin tough liana and from split cane; those of liana (ak), which are large and coarse, are commonly used for carrying corn from the milpa, slung over the shoulders like a macapal. The split-cane baskets, which are smaller and more neatly woven, are used in the house for all sorts of domestic purposes.

Henequen fiber is used by the Indians for a great variety of purposes. The fiber is obtained from the leaf, which is cleaned upon a smooth board (pokche) about 4 feet long by 6 inches broad, in the following way: The top of the board is held against the lower part of the operator's chest while the lower end rests on the floor. The leaf is placed on the board and the pulp scraped from the fiber with a bar of hardwood, triangular in section. At the upper end of the board is a deep notch in its side, in which the cleaned part of the leaf is clamped, thus fixing the part which is being scraped. The cleaning has to be done very early in the morning, as when the sun gets hot the juice from the pulp produces an unpleasant itching rash upon the skin. The fiber when cleaned and dried is made into rope and cord; from the cord hammocks, sacks, a coarse kind of cloth, and many other articles are manufactured. Candles are made by dipping a wick of twisted cotton into melted black beeswax (box keb), obtained from wild bees. Sometimes a number of the logs in which the wild bees hive are brought in to the village and placed one above the other, on trestles, to form a sort of apiary, in order that honey and wax may be always obtainable.

Oil for cooking and for burning in small earthenware lamps with twisted cotton wicks is obtained by breaking up the kernel of the cuhoon nut and boiling it in water. A clear rather thin oil floats to the surface, which may easily be skimmed off. Near the sea coconut oil is prepared in the same way.