Page:Researches in the Central Portion of the Usumatsintla Valley.djvu/43

Rh small size (9 X 12 cm.) give a distinct picture of the features and dress of the men, women, and cliildren (Plate VI, 3, 4, 5).

The men wear an ample shirt-like garment, of strong, somewhat coarse cotton material, which reaches down to the calves of their legs ; but on their hunting expeditions or on journeys they wear a garment of extra-coarse fleecy material. The women wear an undergarment which reaches from the hips down over the calves of their legs, and the shirt-like upper garment falls over this. Each woman is adorned with a thick bunch of necklaces or rather strings of seeds. They are made of hard, usually black, seeds mixed with cylindrical bones, teeth, small snail-shells, or whatever else they can obtain.

The uncut hair of the men falls about their faces, which sometimes gives them a wild and leonine aspect. The women part their hair in the middle, exactly like European women, and at the end of the braid they fasten a tuft of gay bird-feathers, wings, and breasts. All the women have their ear-lobes pierced; so they could delightedly insert the ear-rings (of English manufacture) themselves or confidingly allow me to insert them. Neither men nor women seemed to wear shoes of any kind.

Māx's premises consisted of a large main hut, where he lived with his wives and children. This was surrounded by four smaller, half-open huts, some intended for cooking, and some for the accommodation of guests, and one was devoted exclusively to the incense vessels with faces of gods.

Here also was an abundance of cooking-vessels and implements of every sort, and the inmates had hammocks made of agave cord for sleeping at night and also for resting by day. The hammocks of the Lacantuns are very different from those which are used elsewhere in Mexico. They do not consist of mesh-work, but a system of cross cords holds the lengthwise cords together. They are also shorter than the Mexican ones, but are broad enough. The people do not make their things for sale, but only for their own use, so that it was utterly impossible for me to obtain one of their very prettily made hammocks.

The wooden implement with which the women weave the cotton cloth, la manta, is also interesting. An old woman was at work on a piece of material, and I wanted to buy the implement together with the partly finished web, but she obstinately refused to sell it. The women, however, gave me some of their seed necklaces as mementos, and I requested the men to bring a few of their beautifully made bows and arrows to my camp, promising to pay well for them.

The bows (Fig. 11) are usually made of guayacan, or xibé, or else of chicozapote. The length of the men's bows varies from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy centimetres, that of the larger boys from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and thirty-five centimetres. All the bows are thicker towards the middle and taper very much toward