Mexican Maize Fields 27 



From the cacao they extract a grease much like butter, and this 

 mixed with maize forms another agreeable drink. . . . They pre- 

 pare many kinds of bread, good and healthful, except it is not 

 good when cold. The Indian women are kept busy making bread 

 twice a day. They have not learned how to make a flour that can 

 be kneaded like wheat flour. 



Nor, according to the observing de Landa, did a man's need 

 of maize cease with death. The mouth of the corpse was filled 

 with ground maize moistened with a drink called koyem. 

 After these preparations for the next world the body was 

 buried, and with it were placed some small stones, to serve 

 for money on the journey into eternity. The ancient Peruvians 

 also believed that the dead had need of maize. They kept a 

 feast every year, at about the time the Celts kept Hallowe'en, 

 and the Christians observe All Souls' Day, when they dropped 

 maize into the graves of their dead through openings left for 

 that purpose. 



Among all peoples who get their living directly from the 

 fields, old customs have a way of lingering. Perhaps, then, it is 

 not surprising to find a modern ethnologist discovering in 

 the course of a year spent in a village of Yucatan many of the 

 same customs de Landa described nearly four hundred years 

 ago. 



In the Mayan villages today the activity of every family 

 centers about the hearth, which is made of three stones on 

 which is set the pot, and the griddle for baking tortillas. 

 Beside the hearth stands a round wooden table on which the 

 tortillas are patted out. Close by is the metate-stone with its 

 "hand" the stone roller with which the maize is ground 

 to meal. Many of the metates still in use are very old. Some 

 of them are carved to represent the dragon, symbol of 

 Mother Earth, or the frog which was one symbol of the rain- 

 god. 



And still in these homes and in the villages, old ceremonies 

 connected with planting and harvesting, with the burning of 



