In Vera Paz, incorrigible adulterers were enslaved.[976] In Nicaragua, the faithless wife was repudiated by her husband, and not allowed to marry again, but she had the right of retaining her dowry and effects. The adulterer was severely beaten with sticks, by the relations of the woman he had led astray. The husband appears to have taken no part in the matter.[977] In Yucatan, adultery was punished with death. According to Cogolludo, offenders of both sexes were shot to death with arrows; Landa tells us that the man was killed with a stone by the husband of his paramour, but the woman was punished with disgrace only. It is said that in more ancient times adulterers were impaled or disemboweled. But so great was the horror in which the Yucatecs held this crime, that they did not always wait for conviction, but sometimes punished a suspected person by binding him, stripping him naked, shaving off his hair, and thus leaving him for a time.[978] Among the Pipiles of Salvador he who made advances to a married woman, and did nothing worse, was banished, and his property was confiscated. The adulterer, if we may believe Palacio,[979] was put to death; Squier says he became the slave of the dishonored husband.[980]
Simple fornication was punished with a fine, to be paid in feathers of a certain rare bird, which, by the laws of Vera Paz at least, it was death to kill without express permission, as its plumage formed a most valuable article of trade with the neighboring provinces.[981] But if any complaint was raised, such as by a father in behalf of his daughter, or by a brother for his sister, the seducer was put to death, or at least made a slave.[982] In Yucatan, death seems to have been the inevitable fate of the seducer.[983]
In Guatemala and Salvador, consummated rape was punished with death. He who merely attempted rape was enslaved.[984] In Nicaragua, the penalty for this crime was not so severe, since he who committed it was only obliged to compensate pecuniarily the parents of his victim; though if he could not do this he became their slave. He who ravished the daughter of his employer or lord was, however, always put to death.[985] Incest is said to have been an unknown crime.[986]
Public prostitution was tolerated, if not encouraged, among all the Maya nations. In every Nicaraguan town there were establishments kept by public women, who sold their favors for ten cocoa-nibs, and maintained professional bullies to protect and accompany them at home and abroad. Parents could prostitute their daughters without shame; and it is said, further, that during a certain annual festival, women, of whatever condition, could abandon themselves to the embrace of whomever they pleased, without incurring any disgrace.[987] It was no unusual thing for parents of the lower orders to send their daughters on a tour through the land, that they might earn their marriage portion by prostitution.[988]
UNNATURAL VICES.
All the old writers appear anxious to clear the civilized aborigines from the charge of sodomy, yet the fact that no nation was without strict laws regarding this unnatural vice, combined with the admissions reluctantly made by the reverend fathers themselves, seems to show that pederasty certainly was not unknown. Thus, Las Casas says that sodomy was looked upon as a great and abominable sin in Vera Paz, and was not known until a god,[989] called by some Chin, by others Cavil, and again by others Maran, instructed them by committing the act with another deity. Hence it was held by many to be no sin, inasmuch as a god had introduced it among them. And thus it happened that some fathers gave their sons a boy to use as a woman; and if any other approached this boy he was treated as an adulterer. Nevertheless, if a man committed a rape upon a boy, he was punished in the same manner as if he had ravished a woman. And, adds the same writer, there were always some who reprehended this abominable custom.[990] In Yucatan certain images were found by Bernal Diaz which would lead us to suppose that the natives were at least acquainted with sodomy,[991] but here again the good father[992] takes up the cudgels in behalf of his favorites. In Nicaragua sodomites were stoned to death.[993]
The desire to possess children seems to have been very general, and many were the prayers and offerings made by disappointed parents to propitiate the god whose anger was supposed to have deferred their hopes. To further promote the efficacy of their prayers, the priest enjoined upon man and wife to separate for a month or two, to adhere to a simple diet, and abstain from salt.[994] Several superstitious observances were also regarded; thus, among the Pipiles, a husband should avoid meeting his father-in-law, or a wife her mother-in-law, lest issue fail them.[995] These observances tend the more to illustrate their longing to become parents, since the women are said to have been very prolific. The women were delivered with little difficulty or pain,[996] yet a midwife was called in, who attended to the mother's wants, and facilitated parturition by placing a heated stone upon the abdomen. In Yucatan an image of Ixchel, the goddess of childbirth, was placed beneath the bed. Among the Pipiles and in Guatemala, the woman was confessed when any difficulty arose, and it not unfrequently happened that an officer of justice took advantage of such opportunities to obtain criminating evidence. If the wife's confession alone did not have the desired effect, the husband was called upon to avow his sins; his maxtli was besides laid over the wife, and sometimes blood was drawn from his tongue and ears, to be scattered towards the four quarters with various invocations.[997] After delivery a turkey hen was immolated, and thanks rendered to the deity for the happy issue. The midwife thereupon washed the child, placed a bow and arrow in its hands, if a boy, a spindle, if a girl, and drew a mark upon its right foot, so that it might become a good mountaineer.
CHILDBIRTH AND CIRCUMCISION.
The birth of a son was celebrated with especial rejoicings, and extensive invitations issued for the feasts that took place on or about the day when the umbilical cord was to be cut,[998] a ceremony which seems to have borne the same festive character as baptism among the Nahuas and other nations. The ahgih, astrologer, was asked to name a favorable day for the rite. The cord was then laid upon an ear of maize to be cut off with a new knife and burned. The grains were removed from the cob and sown at the proper season; one half of the yield to be made into gruel and form the first food of the child aside from the mother's milk, the other half to be sent to the ahgih, after reserving a few grains for the child to sow with his own hands when he grew up, and make an offering thereof to his god. At the same time a kind of circumcision may have been performed, a rite which could not, however, have been very general, if indeed it ever existed, for Cogolludo positively asserts that it never was practiced in Yucatan, and Landa thinks that the custom of slitting the foreskin, which the devout performed before the idol, may have given rise to the report. Palacio asserts that certain Indians in Salvador are known to have scarified themselves as well as some boys in the same manner.[999]