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.