FETE OF TODOS SANTOS. 



45 



a certain number of consecrated candles, in honour of 

 his deceased relatives, and in memory of each mem- 

 ber of his family who has died within the year. Be- 

 sides this, they bake in the earth a pie consisting oi 

 a paste of Indian corn, stuffed with pork and fowls, 

 and seasoned with chili, and during the day every 

 good Yucateco eats nothing but this. In the inte- 

 rior, where the Indians are less civilized, they reli- 

 giously place a portion of this composition out of 

 doors, under a tree, or in some retired place, for their 

 deceased friends to eat, and they say that the por- 

 tion thus set apart is always eaten, which induces 

 the belief that the dead may be enticed back by ap- 

 pealing to the same appetites which govern when 

 living ; but this is sometimes accounted for by ma- 

 licious and skeptical persons, who say that in every 

 neighbourhood there are other Indians, poorer than 

 those who can afford to regale their deceased rela- 

 tives, and these consider it no sin, in a matter of this 

 kind, to step between the living and the dead. 



We have reason to remember this fete from one 

 untoward circumstance. A friendly neighbour, who, 

 besides visiting us frequently with his wife and daugh- 

 ter, was in the habit of sending us fruit and dulces 

 more than we could eat, this day, on the top of a 

 large, undisposed-of present, sent us a huge piece of 

 mukbipoyo. It was as hard as an oak plank, and 

 as thick as six of them ; and having already over- 

 tasked ourselves to reduce the pile on the table, 

 when this came, in a fit of desperation we took it 



