102 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



fourth night the marriage was not confummated ; they 

 believed it would have proved unlucky, if they had an- 

 ticipated the period of confummation. The morning 

 after they bathed themfelves and put on new dreffes, 

 and thofe who had been invited, adorned their heads 

 with white, and their hands and feet with red feathers. 

 The ceremony was concluded by making prefents of 

 dreifes to the guefts, which were proportioned to the 

 circumftances of the married pair ; and on that fame day 

 they carried to the temple the mats, ftieets, canes, and 

 the eatables which had been prefented to the idols. 



The forms which we have defcribed, in the marriages 

 of the Mexicans were not fo univerfal through the em- 



o 



pire, but that fome provinces obferved other peculiari- 

 ties. In Ichcatlan, whoever was defirous of marrying 

 prefented himfelf to the priefts, by whom he was con- 

 ducted to the temple, where they cut off a part of his 

 hair before the idol which was worfhipped there, and 

 then pointing him out to the people, they began to ex- 

 claim, faying, this man wifhes to take a wife. Then 

 they made him defcend, and take the firft free woman 

 he met, as the one whom heaven deftined to him. Any 

 woman who did not like to have him for a hufband, 

 avoided coming near to the temple at that time, that 

 {he might not fubjeft herfelf to the neceffity of marry- 

 ing him : this marriage was only lingular therefore in 

 the mode of feeking for a wife. 



Among the Otomies, it was lawful to ufe any free 

 woman before they married her. When any perfon 

 was about to take a wife, if on the firft night he found 

 any thing about his wife which was difagreeable to him, 

 he was permitted to divorce her the next day ; but if 

 he fliewed himfelf all that day content with having her^ 



he 



