Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/94

83 ^e men. Vring titie wood Rad put i|) in plaro. Whay have Ba lime, but they make a mixture of ashes, ooaXJes itpd dirt, wbioh ie ftLmost ss mortar, for when the hotise is to have four otories, they do not make the waJls more than haJf a yard thick. They gather a great pile of twigs of thyme and sedge grass and set it afire, and when it is half coals and ashes they throw a quantity of dirt and water on it and mix it all together. They make round balls of this, which they use instead of stones after they are dry, fixing them with thb same mixture, which comes to be like a stiff clay. Before they are married the young men serve the whole village in general, and fetch the wood that is needed for use, putting it in a pile in th6 court-yard of the villages, from which the women take it to carry to their houses. ITiey gather a great quantity of brushwood and dry it to use for cookiBg all through the year. There are no fruits good to eat in the country except the' pine liiits. They have their preachers. Sodomy is not found among them. They do not eat human flesh nor make sacrifices of it. The people ar6 not cruel, for they had Francisco de Ovando in Tigueix about fox-ty days after he was dead, whole and without any other wound except the one that killed him, white as snow, without any bad smell. I found out several things about them from one of ouF I4dians, who had been a captive among them for a whole year. I asked him especially for the reason why the young women in the province went entirely naked, however cold it might be, and he told me that the virgl^i^ had to go around this way until t^ey txrak abusband and that they covered theinselves after