winship] TRANSLATION OF CASTANEDA 521 



Some were seen with twelve pillars and with four in tbe center as large 

 as two men could stretch around. They usually had three or tour pil- 

 lars. The floor was made of large, smooth stones, like the baths which 

 they have in Europe. They have a hearth made like the binnacle or 

 compass box of a ship,' in which they burn a handful of thyme at a time 

 to keep up the heat, and they can stay iu there just as in a bath. The 

 top was on a level with the ground. Some that were seen were large 

 enough for a game of ball. When any man wishes to marry, it has to be 

 arranged by those who govern. The man has to spin and weave a blanket 

 and place it before the woman, who covers herself with it and becomes 

 his wife. 2 The houses belong to the women, the estufasto the men. If 

 a man repudiates his woman, he has to go to the estufa. :i It is forbidden 

 for women to sleep in the estufas, or to enter these for any purpose 

 except to give their husbands or sons something to eat. The men spin 

 and weave. The women bring up the children and prepare the food. 

 The country is so fertile that they do not have to break up the ground 

 the year round, but only have to sow the seed, which is presently 

 covered by the fall of snow, and the ears come up under the snow. 

 In one year they gather enough for seven. A very large number of 

 cranes and wild geese and crows and starlings live on what is sown, 

 and for all this, when they come to sow for another year, the fields are 

 covered with corn which they have not been able to finish gathering. 



There are a great many native fowl in these provinces, and cocks 

 with great hanging chins. 4 When dead, these keep for sixty days, and 

 longer iu winter, without losing their feathers or opening, and without 

 any bad smell, and the same is true of dead men. 



The villages are free from nuisances, because they go outside to 

 excrete, and they pass their water into clay vessels, which they empty 



•The Spanish is almost illegible Ternaux (pp. 169-170} merely says: "Au milieu estun foyer alluuie." 



*Mota Padilla, cap. xxxii, p. 160 : " En loa casamientos [a Tillies] hay costunibre, que euando un 



mozo ila en servir a una doncella. la espera en la parte donde va a acarrear- agua, y coge el cautaro, 



eon cuya demostracion manitiesta :i loa deudos de ella, la voluutad do casarse : no tienen estos indioa 



mas que una inuger." 



Villagra, Historia de la Nueva Mexico, canto iv, fol. 135: 



T tienen vna cosa aquestas gentes. 

 Que en saliendo las mozas de donzellas, 

 Son a todos comunes, sin escusa, 

 Con tal que se lo paguen, y sin paga, 

 Es vna vil bageza, tal delito, 

 Mas hiego que se casan viuen castas, 

 Contenta cada qual con su marido, 

 Cuia costumhre, con la grande fuerca, 

 Que por naturaleza ya tenian, 

 Teniendo por certissimo noaotros, 

 Seguiamos tambicn aquel camino, 

 luntaron muchas mantas bien pintadas. 

 Para alcanc^ar las damas Castellanas, 

 Que mucho apetecieron y quiaieron. 



It is hoped that a translation of this poem, valuable to the historian and to the ethnologist, if not 

 to the student of literature, may be published in the not distant future. 

 3 This appears to he the sense of a sentence which Ternaux omits. 

 J The American turkey cocks. 



