Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/103

 fire-water (rum), and when they feel hungry some bread, or posole, another preparation of corn.

In this way they pass hour after hour, till the sun is low in the west; then wend their way homeward through forest paths, happy in the thought that they have faithfully performed a religious duty.

The high priest of this venerated image is a white man, his assistant being an Indian named Ku, a medicine-man.

The devotees of Zactalah, hearing that we had discovered a grand altar supported by fifteen stone images (caryatids), came to ask us if they could look at them; and having taken a particular fancy to one, begged to be allowed to carry it away.

"What for?" we asked. They replied, "We will have it in our village, build a nice shrine for it, and it shall be our patron saint; we will light the best wax candles for it, and burn plenty of copal so that it may protect us, because it is an enchanted soul."

Not believing them greatly in need of a new god, we found an excuse for refusing their request.

In fact there is not a bit less idolatry among those people now, perhaps we are safe in saying that there is more, than before Christianity was introduced among them; at least their divinities are more