Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/282

274 hearth. Near it are the metate and metalpile, and an earthen pan, comale, for baking the maize bread. A few unglazed pots and dishes, a large water-pitcher, cups and dippers of gourd shell, comprise all the wealth, and a few carvings of saints (perhaps) the decorations. Mats of rushes or palm leaves answer for seats, table, and bed, and for their final rest in the grave. A mattock and hoe, nets perhaps and strings, the weaving apparatus of the woman (a few sticks), and the scanty provisions, hang on the wall and from the rafters. The Indian still uses the ancient temascale, or steam-bath,—a vaulted adobe oven, just high enough to sit upright in, where stones are heated and water poured on them to generate steam,—and practises simple remedies for his few diseases. His food is mostly vegetables and fruits. He distils and brews his own liquors; on the coast, palm wine, and rum from sugar-cane; on the table lands, pulque from the agave, the fermented juice of the tuna, or prickly-pear, chicha, chilote, etc. Maize is their support, and this is planted everywhere.

After the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, the lands of the Indians became the property of the invaders; but upon remote ranges of mountains, and in unhealthy coast regions, they retained land, because the conquerors feared to settle there in scattered bodies. A reactionary Spanish law granted to each Indian village a free possession extending 600 varas (1,800 feet) from the church, in all directions, and in addition to this a square tract of 3,600 feet base line. This they still possess and can cultivate in common, though many prefer to work on plantations as day-laborers. The Indian is always in debt, and as he can never leave an estate until he has worked out his indebtedness, he exists in a state of peonage which is a mild sort of slavery. They carry on few branches of industry, but have great capacity for making ornaments, and for manufacturing "antiquities," which are bought by unsuspecting travellers and deposited in museums as genuine relics of the past.

These people are trained porters and bearers of heavy burdens; they will sometimes go eighty or a hundred miles to market, and often thirty or forty, with loads of provisions,