Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/84

 being within his jurisdiction. The accounts were, however, rather conflicting. It seems that once a year fifteen or sixteen Caribs, accompanied by their wives, retire to an empty, well-cleaned house away in the woods. They go in procession to the beating of a drum, taking with them one male child five or six years old, whose mother is compelled to remain in the village. They allow no one to follow them, beyond their number; and when asked to give an account of their proceedings say: "After we shut ourselves in the house, we light a big fire in the middle of the floor (the earth serves as floor), and stand round it. Then we lie down with our faces to the ground, leaving the child standing in our midst (where the fire is). When we look up the boy has disappeared—he is carried away by Mafia."

They return to the village without the child; it is never again seen or heard of. When urged to say what they have done with it, they reply that they have given it to Mafia to educate. Every year one child disappears in that way, no one being able to discover what they really do with it, because, when in the great hut where they perform their mysterious rite, they take every precaution to prevent one from peeping in. Some assert that no boy is sacrificed, though they do worship an invisible being that they