GANN] MAYA INDIANS OF YUCATAN AND BRITISH HONDURAS 31 



cleaning has to be done very early in the morning, as when the sun 

 gets hot the juice from the pulp produces an unpleasant itchmg rash 

 upon the skin. The fiber when cleaned and dried is made into rope 

 and cord; from the cord hammocks, sacks, a coarse kind of cloth, 

 and many other articles are manufactured. Candles are made by 

 dipping a wick of twisted cotton into melted black beeswax (box Iceb), 

 obtamed from wild bees. Sometimes a number of the logs in which 

 the wild bees hive are brought m to the village and placed one above 

 the other, on trestles, to form a sort of apiary, m order that honey 

 and wax may be always obtainable. 



Oil for cooking and for bm-ning in small earthenware lamps with 

 twisted cotton wicks is obtained by breaking up the kernel of the 

 cuhoon nut and boiling it in water. A clear rather thin oil floats to 

 the surface, which may easily be skimmed off. Near the sea coconut 

 oil is prepared in the same way. 



