14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 95 



As to their religion, they are not idolaters, and they embrace with 

 devotion the mysteries of our holy faith. They attend mass with 

 regularity at 1 1 o'clock on the holy days they observe, namely, Sunday, 

 and the festivals of Christmas, the Circumcision, Epiphany, the 

 Purification of Our Lady, and the days of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and 

 All Saints Day, and before entering the church each one brings to the 

 house of the priest as a contribution a log of wood. They do not talk 

 in the church, and the women are separated from the men ; the former 

 on the side of the Epistle, the latter on the side of the Evangel. They 

 are very devoted to the Virgin, and on Saturdays they attend when her 

 mass is sung. On Sundays they attend the Rosario and the Salve in the 

 afternoon. They celebrate with rejoicing and devotion the Birth of 

 Our Lord, all attending the midnight mass with offerings of loaves, 

 eggs ^' and other food. They subject themselves to extraordinary 

 penances during Holy Week, and during the 24 hours of Holy 

 Thursday and Friday, while our Lord is in the Urn of the Monument," 

 they attend standing, praying the rosary in complete silence, 24 men 

 and 24 women and the same number of children of both sexes, with 

 hourly changes. The children, both male and female, go to the church 

 on work days, to a religious school where they are taught by a teacher 

 whom they call the Athequi "^ of the church ; [a person] whom the 

 priests have for this service ; as they have also a person deputized '* to 

 report to them concerning all parishioners who live in evil. 



Your Majesty's most humble servant and chaplain, 



Gab'l ^ Bishop of Cuba. 



^ Spelled guebos. 



'" En la Urnn del Moniimcnto. 



" Athequi; Indian word meaning " interpreter ". 



" The word here translated " person deputized " is fiscal, which means " at- 

 torney " or " prosecutor ", but neither of those terms seems to the translator to 

 fit the case. ^ 



"■^ Gabriel ; abbreviated thus. f 



