CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE MAYAS. 667 



saying that the souls have already drawn from them all the ethe- 

 real part of the substance. 



When among the ruins in the ancient city of Chichen Itza, we 

 happened to be very hard pressed for food on All Saints day, as 

 on many other occasions, and knowing that the " feast of the 

 dead " would be celebrated in a not very distant village, we al- 

 lowed some of our men to go there and take their chance of 

 enjoying a good meal. 



In that they were most successful, the natives being at all 

 times exceedingly hospitable, and never failing to invite those 

 who approach their home to partake of what they have. But the 

 men also thought of us. We had early taken to our hammocks, 

 remembering the saying, " Qui dort, dine " (He who sleeps, 

 eats). About two o'clock in the morning we were aroused by a 

 man only just returned from the village. He had waited there 

 till all were asleep, then made his way to the graveyard, and 

 gathered from a tree a fine fruit in the shape of a large pie. This 

 he brought to us, wisely arguing that the embodied needed it 

 more than the disembodied. The dead man's food was still 

 wrapped in its banana leaf, and we were not sorry to avail our- 

 selves of this chance to breakfast at two o'clock in the morning. 

 No tender chicken was concealed within that particular crust, 

 only a pig's foot with a few stray bristles on it, and a most liberal 

 dose of red pepper, but hunger made it excellent. 



When overtaken by disease, the Indians doctor themselves 

 with certain herbs, and if that fails, call a medicine man, who 

 knows about as much of their malady as they themselves do 

 perhaps less. They never attribute illness to natural causes, but 

 either declare that they are bewitched or that their time has come 

 and Death wants them. The medicine man pretends that he can 

 discover the party who has done the bewitching, and for that pur- 

 pose demands three days' meditation in the home of the patient, 

 during which time he must be supplied with all the good food 

 and drink procurable. On the third day he drinks balch^, nectar 

 of the gods, until he falls into a heavy sleep. The instant he 

 awakes he looks into a crystal and there pretends to see the witch 

 or wizard. He then scrapes the mud floor under the hammock of 

 the patient, and produces a small figure that he, of course, had 

 concealed about his person, and declares that that was what 

 caused the sickness. For this simple trick he receives a fee. If 

 the patient recovers, the medicine man's reputation is greatly in- 

 creased. If death results, the mourners say : " It is very hard, but 

 so it was written ; his time had come ; it had to be thus." 



The little figures used by the trickster are made of wax and 

 have a thorn stuck in the part corresponding to the seat of great- 

 est pain in the body of the victim. This particular superstition 



