GA.NN] MAYA IXDIANS OF YUCATAN AND BRITISH HONDURAS 17 



The description given by Landa (chap, xxxii, p. 192) of the Indian 

 women at the time of the conquest apphes equally well to their 

 descendants of the present day: 



Emhorac'havanse tambien ellas con los combites, aunque por si, como cotnian par 

 si, y no ee emborachavan tanto como los hombres . . . Son avisadas y corteses y 

 conversables, con que sc entienden, y a maravilla bien partidas. Tienen poco 

 secreto y no son tan limpias en sus personas ni en sua cosas con quanto se lavan como 

 los erminos. 



The women arc very industrious, rising usually at 3 or 4 o'clock 

 in the morning to prepare the day's supply of tortillas or corn cake. 

 During the day they prepare tobacco (kutz) and make cigarettes; 

 gather cotton (taman), which they spin (kucli), weave (sakal), and 

 embroider for garments; weave mats of pahn leaf and baskets (xush) 

 of a variety of Uana (aJc); make pottery (ul), and cotton and hene- 

 quen cord, of which they construct hammocks Qcan). In addition 

 to these tasks they do the family cooking and washing, look after 

 the children, and help their husbands to attend to the animals. 

 Till late at night the women may be seen spinning, embroidering, 

 and hammock-making by the light of a native candle or a small 

 earthenware cuhoon-nut oil lamp, meanwhile laughing and chatting 

 gayly over the latest village scandal, the older ones smoking cigarettes, 

 while the men squat about on their low wooden stools outside the 

 house gravely discussing the weather, the milpas, the hunting, or 

 the iniquities of the Alcalde. Among the Indian women of British 

 Honduras the old customs are rapidly dying out; spinning and 

 weaving are no longer practiced, pottery making has been rendered 

 unnecessary by the introduction of cheap iron cooking pots and 

 earthenware, candles have given place to minc-ral oil lamps, and 

 even the metate is being rapidly superseded by small American hand 

 mills for grinding the corn. The men's time is divided between 

 agriculture, hunting, fishing, and boat and house buildmg, though 

 at times they undertake tasks usually left to the women, as mat 

 and basket making, and even spinning and weaving. The In- 

 dians of British Honduras who live near settlements do light work 

 for the rancheros and woodcutters; they have the reputation of being 

 improvident and lazy, and of leaving their work as soon as they have 

 acquired sufficient money for their immediate needs, and this is to 

 some extent true, as the Indian always wants to invest his cash in 

 something which will give an immediate return in pleasure or amuse- 

 ment. The men are silent, though not sullen, very intelfigent in all 

 matters which concern their o^vn daily life, but singularly incurious 

 as to anytiiing going on outside of this. They are civil, obliging, 

 and good-tempered, and make excellent servants, when they can be 

 got to work, but appear to be for the most part utterly lacking in 

 -18— Bull. 64 2 



