The host always asks his guests to submit for four days longer to the restrictions that are necessary to insure the efficiency of the dancing. These refer mainly to abstinence from mescal and women, and are conscientiously observed for five days before and five days after the occasion, by the family who arranges the dance. The shaman, on whom the obligation to observe these formalities is greater than on anyone else, may have to officiate at another mitote before the time limit for the first has expired, therefore much of his time is spent in privations.
After the feast, the tapexte, that is to say, the matting, which constituted the top of the altar, is hung up in a tree to be used again the next year. The trees that have formed the bower near the altar are left undisturbed. The ceremonial objects are placed in the trees for four or five days, and then put into a basket which is hung in some cave. At Pueblo Viejo no more tribal mitotes are given, and it seems that no family anywhere makes more than one a year.
When a newly married couple wish to give their first mitote, they go away from the house for a month. Both of them bathe and wash their clothes, and impose restrictions upon themselves, sleeping most of the time. When awake they talk little to each other, and think constantly of the gods. Only the most necessary work is done; he brings wood and she prepares the food, consisting of tortillas, which must not be toasted so long that they lose their white colour. A thin white gruel, called atole, made from ground corn, is also eaten, but no deer-meat, nor fish with the exception of a small kind called mítshe. Neither salt nor beans are allowed. The blankets they wear must also be white. During all this time they must not cut flowers or bathe or smoke; they must not get angry at each other, and at night they must sleep on different sides of the fire.
Fasting and abstinence form an integral part of the religion of these people. A man who desires to become a shaman must keep strictly to a diet of white tortillas and atole for five years. His drink is water, and that only once a day, in the afternoon. The people here once fasted for two months, in order to aid General Porfirio Diaz to become President of Mexico; and they told me that they were soon going to subject themselves to similar privations in order to help another official whom they wanted to remain in his position.
Fasting also plays an important part in the curing of diseases. The patient, with his doctor, may go out and live in the woods and fast for many days, the shaman smoking tobacco all the time. An omen as to whether the patient will live or die is taken from the colour of the tobacco smoke. If it is yellow the omen is bad. Or if the smoke remains dense the patient will live; but if it disperses he will die.
A very interesting ceremony is performed over a child when it is one year old. The parents go with the shaman into the field and fast for five days before the anniversary and for five days afterward. An hour or two after sunset a big fire is made and four arrows and the ceremonial object called god’s eye are placed east of it. The parents and those present look east all the time. The shaman first makes four ceremonial circuits, then puffs tobacco-smoke on the god’s eye and on the child. He sings incantations and again makes four ceremonial circuits, and smokes as before. Next he places his mouth to the child’s forehead, and draws out something that is called the cochiste, the sleep or dreams, spitting it out in his hand. He makes a motion with his plumes as if he lifted something up with them from his hand, and holds the plumes over the god’s eye for a while. The people now see that two small, white balls are attached to the plumes, and he shows them to all present, to prove that he does not deceive them. Then he crushes the balls in his left hand with a sound as if an egg was cracked, and throws them away. In the morning salt is offered to the rasters.
The cochiste is taken away from boys twice and four times from girls. A boy cannot get married until the cochiste is taken away. A girl at the age of puberty is pledged to a year of chastity, and the same ceremony is performed on her as in babyhood, to be repeated in the following year. Should she transgress during that time the belief is that she or her parents or her lover will die. The principle of monogamy is strictly enforced, and if a woman deviates from it she has to be cured by the shaman, or an accident will befall her—a jaguar or a snake will bite her, or lightning strike her, or a scorpion sting her, etc.
She gives the shaman a wad of white cotton, which he places on the god’s eye. When he smokes tobacco and talks to the god’s eye, information is given to him through the cotton, which reveals to him whether she has more than one husband, and even the name of the unlawful one. He admonishes her to confess, explaining to her how much better the result will be, as he then can cure her with much greater strength. Even if she confesses, she is only half through with her trouble, because the shaman exacts heavy payment for the cure, from $10 to $20. If she cannot pay now, she has to come back in a month, and continue coming until she can settle her account. By rights, the man should pay for her, but often he runs away and leaves her in the lurch. Since the Indians have come in contact with the Mexicans this happens quite often. When at length the money is paid and she has confessed everything, there is nothing more for the shaman to do but to give an account of it to the god’s eye, and she goes to her home absolved. One year afterward she has to come back and report, and, should she in the meantime have made another slip, she has to pay more. From all the cotton wads the shaman gets he may have girdles and hair-ribbons made, which he eventually sells.
The custom related above is of interest as showing the forces employed by ancient society to maintain the family intact. Fear of accidents, illness or death, more even than the fine or anything else, keeps the people from yielding too freely to the impulses of their senses.
The treatment accorded to the dead by these people, and their notions regarding them, are, in the main, the same as those obtaining with the tribes which I visited before them, but there are some new features that are of interest. Here, for instance, near the head of the dead, who lies stretched out on the ground in the house, the shaman places a god’s eye and three arrows; and at his feet another arrow. He sings an incantation and smokes tobacco, though not on the dead, while the widow makes yarn from some cotton, which she has first handed to the shaman. When she has finished the yarn, she gives it to the shaman, who tears it into two pieces of equal length, which he ties to the arrow standing at the right-hand side of the man. One piece he rubs over with charcoal; this is for the dead, and is tied lower down on the arrow. He winds it in a ball, except the length which reaches from the arrow to the middle of the body, where the ball is placed under the dead man’s clothes. The other thread the shaman holds in his left hand, together with his pipe and plumes. After due incantations he divides the white thread into pieces of equal length, as many as there are members of the family, and gives one piece to each. They tie them around their necks and wear them for one year. Afterward they are mixed with Some other material and from them a ribbon or girdle is made.