Even the fact that a woman has just been delivered of a child does not serve as an impediment to her going with the husband; she simply carries the new-born baby with her, either in a piece of cloth on her back or else mounted on one of her hips.
If the husband, for one reason or another, is called before a court of justice, he appears accompanied by his wife, simply because it is her duty to go with him and to act as his defender. She does this wonderfully well; she speaks with such warmth and so fluently, with such courage and enthusiasm, absolutely free from her usual bashful shyness, that one cannot help but admire her. And this absolute devotion on her part to the service of her consort does not weaken even with the ill-treatment she receives at his hands in return, for whenever he is intoxicated he treats her to a liberal whipping—he beats her with his bare hands even, or with a stick.
Under such circumstances marital fidelity on the part of the women is not, nor can it be, very deep-rooted, and frequently her seducers triumph over her virtue. However, if the husband surprises them and the woman succeeds in escaping him, he denounces her to the next court of justice and demands that she be given a certain number of blows. She invariably receives them quite resignedly, and after the ordeal returns peacefully to her domestic duties. If the woman is the offended one, she also goes before the judge and demands that her rival be treated to the same punishment. Any sickness that might befall them after this misadventure, they unfailingly attribute to witchcraft instigated by their offenders. Witchcraft enjoys such wide popularity among Indian women that there is hardly one among them who cannot relate one and even many cases of the black art in her family. To their minds superstition and credulity go hand in hand, and if one tells them of some strange occurrence ascribed to enchantment, they believe it as readily and as firmly as if it had happened to themselves or as if they had witnessed it. And if one immediately afterward asks them whether it is day or night, they will answer doubtfully, even after having looked at the sun—so wrapped up in the tale have they become.
They are very fond of dancing and of music, but they do not perform the former either gracefully or freely, nor have they any variety or art in its execution. They have no talent or gift for playing an instrument either. They are wont to sing in their idle moments or even while at work, but sadly and in a monotone.
The woman who finds herself pregnant works until the very last moment before the child is born, and resumes her tasks immediately afterward, as soon as the baby is attended to. They leave their children so much to themselves, and give them so little care, that they are forever creeping around on the floor in all the mire and dirt, and always completely naked. A diaper and a tiny hipil are all they get for the first few days of their life. Around wrists and ankles they occasionally will tie tiny cords made of blue cotton to protect them, so they say, from epilepsy. Those who can afford to do so will hang a little rosary of beads interspersed with wooden honey-berries around their necks and put tiny earrings in their ears.
A pregnant Indian woman will not go outdoors during an eclipse, in order to avoid her child being born with spots or ugly birthmarks on its body; nor do they visit women who have just given birth to a child, because it is their belief that the babies would become ill with pains in their bowels.
As soon as the child is six months old they name a godfather and a godmother for the ceremony of opening the baby's limbs for the first time. To this end they set a table with some kind of pottage, and the godfather makes nine rounds of the table, with the baby placed astride one of his hips, which is the way in which it will be carried thereafter by its mother. Then they place in the child's hands, if it is a girl, a needle, a spindle, and the implements with which they weave their cloth; if it is a boy, he is given a hatchet, a machete, and other implements he is expected to use when grown up. These godparents enjoy the same distinction as those at the christening.
The women do not care about knowing their own age, and they keep track of the age of their children only until they have attained about six or eight years; after that they forget it. Although they grow into young manhood or womanhood very quickly, really old age comes late, except in the appearance of the women, who at the age of thirty-five look like women of forty-five.
Their most common diseases are pleurisy, intermittent fevers, and jaundice, while fits, fainting spells, and hysterics are exceedingly rare.
As a rule the women are abstemious, economical, and very hospitable. They love work, and are fond of raising chickens and turkeys, which they sell in order to enable them to buy what they most need, or else they prepare such fowl for banquets, marriages, christenings, the day of All Souls, or for the novenas which they celebrate for the Holy Cross or the saint of their special devotion. They do not fancy all manner of necessities, nor do they pretend to live on the work of their husbands; rather they work constantly in order to dominate them, and in this they succeed generally, at least to a certain degree. They will upbraid them if they undertake anything without asking their advice. They do not forget offenses they may have received until they are avenged. In their old age they are liable to commit small insignificant thefts, and they especially seem to like to become mendicants, even though they do not need to be. They seem to do this as a kind of compensation for what in their earlier days they may have given to the poor.