Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/38

Rh, wood-carvers, sculptors, saddlers, tradesmen who make many curious things out of shell, bricklayers, stonecutters, tailors, painters, and so on. What causes wonder is that there are many Indians who work at four or six trades where a Spaniard would have but one... but with that almost innate coolness for work they supply their wants and turn out good work, which they sell more cheaply than the Spaniards do, so that those tradesmen who go to Yucathan fare badly at their trades; so there are but few of them, and they seek other means of earning a livelihood.

“They wear clothes of very white cotton, of which they make shirts, breeches, and certain mantles a vara and a half square which they call tilmas or hayantes. These can be made to serve as capes by drawing the two corners up on the shoulder and making a knot; indeed, very many people use ones made out of somewhat coarse woven wool, and even many of stuffs brought from Spain, such as damasks and other silks. Some use jackets, and many wear shoes and hempe sandals. The usual custom, however, is to go barefoot, especially in their own houses and fields, but the opposite is true of some Caciques and leading men, and of women. Most of the men wear hats of straw or palm-leaves, and nowadays many buy felt hats. The women use Uaipiles, which is a garment that falls from the throat to the middle of the leg, with an opening at the top, where the head goes, and two others at the top of the sides for the arms, which are covered halfway down. Because this garment is not tied in at the waist, it also serves as a shirt. From the waist to the feet is another garment called Pic, and it is like petticoats and goes under the outer garment. Most of these are worked with blue and red thread, which makes them sightly. If a Spanish woman is seen in this dress it looks, on her, most improper. Little Indian girls who are growing up with Spanish women become great embroiderers, seamstresses, and patchers, and they make things that are sold at large prices and much esteemed.

“For Sundays and Feast-days when they go to Mass, and when they are to be confessed, both men and women have cleaner and neater clothes, which they keep for this. Other customs and things of theirs will be learned through the laws that have been given to remedy them, which will be related in the Fifth Book.

“There were Indians in the past days of their ancestors who had larger bodies than those now common, bodies which were found in the sepulchres of this land and which had gigantic stature. In 1647 in the village of Vecal, on the royal road of Campeche, Padre Fray Juan de Carrión (now Provincial Commissioner for the next General Chapter) ordered his Indians to make an arbor for a reception he was to hold. They had just set up the sticks with which it was to be made when the tools hit upon a very large sepulchre made of flag-stones placed one over another without any peculiarities of carving whatever. The Indians ran away from it and went to call the Padre, who, on arriving, ordered them to take out whatever was in the sepulchre. The Indians did not want to do this, saying that it was prohibited for them to touch anything of that sort. So the Padre, with the aid of a small boy, got out the bones of a man of formidable size. There were in the sepulchre three bowls of very fine pottery having three hollow balls in place of feet, and there was a small black box of what appeared to be jasper. The Padre burned the bones, threw them away, and filled up the hole, rebuking the Indians for not wishing to touch it, on the plea that it was forbidden to them to do so....”