Coupled with this came the mistletoe, and, to act in the plays, laymen, too, were admitted. Whenever it was necessary to raise funds for the repair of some church, dances were performed in the churchyard on Sundays. The surplus of the funds, after paying for the repair of the church, went to the support of the poor. In the course of ages abuses set in and now the performers have the proceeds themselves.
Sunburst of Erin.—In pagan days most of the Irish people looked towards the east for the rising sun and adored it. The most ancient flag of our country known was, I believe, a sky-blue field with a sunburst. In a field belonging to Mr. P. Lynch is a large stone bearing an ancient sunburst emblem upon it. (For Ogham's inscribed stones, see History County Kerry.)
Toothache Cure.—The cure given by some old women for toothache was to have the sufferer in person enter a churchyard burial ground, find a dead man's finger or coffin nail and place it in his mouth, pressing the tooth several times into it. This practice was long ago abandoned.
Witches (Witch Hare).—When I was a little boy I found a few old women possessed of a horrid superstitious belief to the effect that an old witch (a woman) could change herself into a hare, and as such would go about lises, forts and like haunted places and therefrom enter fields and milk cows dry.[17]
FOOTNOTES:
[12] In old Mexico a large wooden cross marks the spot where murders have taken place. On my way over the mountains and grand canyons between Beristan (Carman) and Tepexico. In the State of Pueblo, I saw houses very often having two and three crosses near them, and also that the gable ends of their houses were crowned with one or more crosses. Having heard a good deal of talk about the bandits and murders of that part of the country through which I was passing, I asked if all those crosses which I saw represented murders only. I was informed by the Indians, and Mexicans themselves, that it was for a long time the custom to erect crosses where sudden deaths occurred from other causes, such as suicides, man or woman devoured by a wild beast, or the like, as well as in cases of murder and manslaughter. Furthermore, they told me (through an Italian as interpreter) that the crosses upon so many Indian houses were an exhibition of their attachment to the cross of Christ. I found Pueblo a strong Catholic State, and the crosses are put standing, as near as circumstances will permit, to where the murdered man expired, and if possible in view of persons passing by as an appeal to the traveler to pray for the soul of the person or persons who fell there.
Amongst other curious customs practiced by those queer people the following were impressed on my memory: That Mexico City has funeral street cars, which I have not seen in any other part of the world. To understand my point more clearly, the electric street cars running on rails with an electric car as a hearse, pick up the dead bodies and carry them to the graveyard or cemetery. Here the coffin is unlocked and the corpse must be examined and clearly identified to the complete satisfaction of the caretaker, after which the coffin is again locked and the corpse buried in a grave or tomb leased for seven years. At the end of seven years or thereabouts, out of the tomb or grave the remains must go unless the lease is renewed or the grave bought forever at an enormous sum of about $400.
As I had not sufficient command of the Spanish language to enable me to put the question direct to the natives and obtain information from their lips without the assistance of an interpreter, the figures set down for me as the prices of a grave are so much at variance, as well as the form of procedure in evicting a dead man from his grave in Mexico, that I leave that part of the matter to abler authorities.
In connection with the wakes of their dead, in our camps I noticed that they did drink a milk-like liquid called "pulgue," extracted from the mague or century plant. It has the taste, color and appearance of milk, but it is so intoxicating that if a person should drink any large quantity of it he would become so drunk and helpless that a stranger would believe he was dead and would never wake again. At the few wakes that came under my notice, the Mexicans were very orderly and showed every mark of respect to the dead. I believe there were no pipes or tobacco at those wakes, or if there were any they escaped my notice. At San Francisco, California, the Chinese put food on their burial plots for their dead, but the "hoboes" visiting that city steal the food and eat it as often as they can get at it.
[13] Dancing masters between 1775 and 1780 were paid sixpence (twelve cents) a quarter with meals for teaching dancing to a whole family. However, a dancing master's quarter was much less than three months.