Reports on the Maya Indians of Yucatan. García Cubas Antonio
is abundant, the Indians are very immoderate in its use, consequently they suffer from diarrhea and vomiting. In spring and summer they have tabardillo, which is a burning fever, and dysentery, both of which are caused by too much exposure to the hot sun; and in winter obstinate constipation, colds, and affections of the throat and lungs. Their curative methods consist merely of abstinence and of bleeding, which they perform with a thorn or a fish-bone, and they cool their blood by drinking sour pozole or boiled lemonade, or else a decoction of a plant called xhantumbú. They never use emetics nor cathartics.
Ordinarily they eat two meals a day, one on rising and another in the evening. If they go to work in the field, after having breakfasted on tortillas and atole, they take with them a large lump of pozole which they use as a refreshment at noon by diluting it in water. At sunset they leave work, and, returning home, eat the second meal, generally after having taken their bath. Their usual food consists of boiled vegetables seasoned with salt, chile, and sometimes with the juice of oranges (the sour orange is used for this) or of lemons. On Sundays, if they are able to do so, they buy beef or pork; these are the only days when they eat meat, except when they kill a wild bird or a creature of the woods while hunting. Such meat they cook by baking it in a special way in the earth, or else in pib. The very poor among them live all the year round on tortillas and chile, and a bowlful of pozole or atole. Even the wealthiest content themselves with only one dish. This does not interfere with their being big eaters, nor devouring all they can get when it does not cost them anything.
Their usual beverage is called pitarrilia, consisting of the bark of a plant called balché which they put in soak in fresh water and honey and let it ferment. After fermentation it becomes strong enough to be intoxicating. They are also very fond of liquor, and there are very few among them who do not become intoxicated occasionally, at least on Sundays.
Experience, and to a certain extent tradition, are their only guides for telling the different seasons of the year; they have not the slightest remembrance of their ancient calendar system. They are accustomed to hear clocks strike where such exist, but otherwise, simply from the course of the sun, moon, and stars, they are able to regulate the hours of the day and night, more or less. They also know when an eclipse of the moon is approaching, attributing this phenomenon to an intention of the sun to destroy his satellite, and they therefore are prepared to make a fearful racket with sticks, mitotes, whistles or horns (fotutos2), shotguns, and other instruments during the eclipse, believing that by so doing they can avoid the catastrophe.
They sleep from early evening until four o'clock in the morning. Their working hours, if it is at all necessary for them to go to work, last from sunrise to sunset. If they are paid, they walk or travel at all hours, even with a load.
There are a few among them who are trustworthy and faithful in their contracts, and know how to keep their word and promises; but there is a greater number who absolutely lack all of these virtues, with the exception, perhaps, of the solemn promises they make to their saints, in the fulfilment of which they are scrupulously punctual.
They lie easily and very frequently, although they are aware that lies are prohibited. Generally they evade, whenever possible, a truthful answer which is to the point and fully satisfies the question.
Their principal vices are lasciviousness among both sexes, and drunkenness among the men. To do them justice though, we might as well acknowledge that it is more than probable that if other races and tribes had to live as they do, almost naked, in the complete liberty and isolation of country places, all members of one family, males and females, grownups and minors, the married and the single ones sleeping together in those little huts without any, or at best, very scant, knowledge of religion, of modesty and honor, without any fear of the consequences of unchastity to the women, without any intellectual enjoyment, reduced to the merest essentials – to satisfy hunger, thirst, sleep, and the intercourse of the two sexes, might they not be guilty of worse crimes?
They are generally accused of being inclined to theft, but as a rule they steal small things of little value, and they are not known to recur to violence or murder to satisfy this tendency.
The wealthy are free money-lenders to members of their own tribe and even to those of a different stock, so long as they are satisfied they are not going to be cheated.
As in almost all of the most populated part of the Yucatecan peninsula, it is impossible to use the plow for tilling the fields; labor is reduced to clearing the tropical growth by burning it in the height of summer and sowing corn or vegetables when the rains commence, to fencing in the fields and weeding them, etc. In order to be able to cultivate at one time as much as possible of their extensive lands, the wealthy Indians pay their day-laborers and volunteers exceedingly well, either in money or in its equivalent in provisions at a price below its actual market value, especially in times of scarcity. They are guided in this by the rule, "This is sweat of my brethren and it is not right that they should pay it too dearly." If those workers are servants of some large ranch and live on the place, they are called Luneros,3 because they give their master their day's work on Mondays in exchange for the land he gives them to cultivate for themselves and for the water he allows them for irrigation of their fields. If they do not, for one reason or another, go to work on that day, he receives one real in silver instead. The customary amount of work they really are compelled to do for their master per year is twenty mecates of clearing of untilled land and another twenty of already previously tilled fields. Had the owner to pay for hired labor, this would amount to 12 pesos, 4 reals. In addition to this they have to give him two hours on Saturdays for what they call fagina,4 which means work around the house of any kind their patron should order them to do. On some of the ranches the obligatory field-work is reduced to half, but in this case they have to pay their real for Mondays, and always have to do the Saturday's fagina. Any other service or work they may be called on to do is paid or put to their account. By milpa roza,5 the first clearing of a field by felling trees, cutting and burning undergrowth, etc., is meant; while the milpa caña6 is the clearing of fields that have already been tilled the year before, where the cornstalks are to be split and burnt in order to plant again.
Those who are employed as cowboys on stock-farms receive a fixed wage, and are not subject to the Monday service nor to the usual field-work. They have to look after the cattle and horses, and they have charge of the draw-wells, the tanks, and drinking pools. They have to attend to irrigation, weeding, and sowing of the truck gardens and orchards, and in general to do all work performed on such ranches either for their conservation and improvement or else in personal service to the owners or for the advantage of its products. It is also their duty to rasp a certain amount of henequen fiber from the agave each day. Their wage is from eight to twelve reals per month and five almudes7 of corn per week. Yet neither this latter nor the salary are paid to him as his earnings, but credited to his account against what he draws in provisions or money, so that he actually is always indebted. This, however, is the aim of the owners, in order to hold the man quite secure, even though they know very well that, should the man die in their service, they would lose that amount. They see to it, however, that he never owes too much. This really constitutes a kind of slavery (peonage) which the men try to avenge by serving as poorly as they can, even to such masters as aim to make their lot easy and agreeable by frequent gifts or bonuses.
As a rule the Yucatecan Indians are regarded as being meek, humble, and not easily stirred to ire and cruelty, basing such an opinion on the fact that the most customary punishment among them was a whipping applied with moderation. This kind of punishment did not offend them, if they were informed of the reason why it was meted out to them, nor did they consider it degrading. This characteristic is still noticeable among those who have remained submissive and attached to the white people. It is quite different with those among them who have had to suffer the cruel, atrocious, and protracted martyrdom inflicted by the rebels. They are merciless to those who have fallen and still fall into their power, not only those of other tribes, but even of their own, in case they refuse to follow their
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