PAESONS] PERSONAL LIFE 233 



secret of success and potency was a belief, I surmise, once held at 

 Isleta and still held at Taos.'" To make the hair lontj and thick, after 

 washing, a salve of cow marrow mixed and boiled with very young 

 tobacco leaf is rubbed on the head. 



Marriage; HorsE Ownership; Marriage Choices; Family Com- 

 position 



Girls are said to many at a comparatively advanced age, about 18 

 or later. 1 heaid of few such early marriages as are made, for example, 

 at Jemez.°' Formerly a husband was chosen for a girl by her par- 

 ents — Lucinda's husband was thus chosen for her — "this was the old 

 way," now girls choose for themselves. "A pretty man" was de- 

 scribed by Lucinda as being tall and thin, with a dark skin and long 

 hair. . . . There is in town a 17-year-old girl who is a deaf-mute. 

 "Would she ever get married?" I asked. "Oh, no! Oh, no!" 

 answered Lucinda, surprised by the very question, an attitude I have 

 noted in other pueblos over any question of the marriage ability of 

 the defective. It is the economic disqualification which, consciously 

 at least, is being considered. 



In courtship the boy may talk to the girl somewhere, perhaps by 

 the river bank when she is filling her water jar.'^ . . . Lucinda had 

 been sumusing that a certain neighbor, a middle-aged widow, was 

 entertaining the suit of a certain widower. One day on visiting her 

 neighbor she found her washing the man's head. Then Lucinda was 

 sure the widow was going to marry him. ... If a widow or girl is 

 obdurate, a man may go to a medicine man for help. The medicine 

 man bids him return in the morning, for he, the medicine man, has 

 first to ask his chief's permission to help. The permission obtained, 

 the medicine man passes on his "power" to the suitor. The suitor 

 visits the woman, saying only "Akuwam!" (greetings). She looks at 

 him. That is enough. If he docs not return to her, she will feel 

 compelled to go to him and beg him to marry her. Then the suc- 

 cessful suitor reports to the medicine man, who removes the power 

 from him. 



After preliminaries with the girl, the suitor asks her parents for her 

 in a letter which is breathed from '^ when it is received. If they do not 

 answer within three days he knows he will not get her. But if they 

 do not reject or "pumpkin him,"®^ his parents will kUl two or three 

 steers and send half the meat to the girl's parents. They send for 

 wood and half the load they also donate to the girl's parents. The 



« For hair cuttings and black niagic, see p. 244. 



" But see Parsons, 9: 167. 



" See p. 452. 



" See p. 282. 



M See pp. 392, 403. .\lso Parsons, fl: 166-168 for (urtber details; also minor discrepancies in the accounts. 



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