20. Their manner of sitting is generally on their heels [en cuclillas], and they do that in all places except in the convents, where they break the seats with sitting on them and leaning back in them with out-stretched legs. And they must do this in the balconies, where they can see the women.[57]
21. They care more for their disheveled hair than they do for their souls; and only they will not imitate the Spaniards if they have the custom of shaving, as is now being introduced with the false hair and perukes.[58]
22. Their usual habitation and happiness in the convents consists in not leaving the kitchen. There they hold their meetings and feasts, and there is their glory, as is the open country in Castilla. A religious whom I knew, called the kitchen Flos sanctorum,[59] because the life of the father and of all the village was discussed there.
23. When they go out alone at night, they must have a blazing torch, and go about waving it like a censer; and then they throw it down wherever they please, and this is usually the cause of great fires.
24. They would rather wear mourning than go about in gala dress, and are accordingly very observant in wearing it during their funerals.[60]
25. They do not esteem garments or gala dresses given them by their Spanish masters; and accordingly leave such in any place, without perceiving that they are losing them. But any old rag that they wear from their own houses they esteem and value highly.
26. They do not care for any domestic animal—dog, cat, horse, or cow. They only care, and too much so, for the fighting cocks; and every morning, on rising from slumber, the first thing that they do is to go to the roosting-place of their cock—where, squatting down on their heels, in its presence, they stay very quietly for at least a half-hour in contemplation of their cock. This observance is unfailing in them.[61]
27. They live unwillingly in convents, or in houses where they cannot be at least on the scent of women.
28. It is not known that the Indian has [ever] broken a dish or a crock in his own house, and consequently one will find dishes in them that date from before the arrival of the Spaniards in this country. But in the convents and houses where they serve, they break so many that one would believe that they do it on purpose to do their masters an ill turn.[62]
29. One may not trust a sword, mirror, glass, musket, clock, or any other rare article to them; or allow them to touch it even with the hands; for immediately, by physical contact alone, they put it out of joint, break it, and harm it. They can only handle bamboo, rattan, nipa, or a bolo, and some few a plow.[63]