y had gathered there
from habit, though nobody knew how to pray, and they sat around talking
and laughing all the time. It was their Christian worship. Crescencio
has now taught them to say prayers.

The teachings of Christianity, however, are for the most part
forgotten. No trace of the religion of charity remains among them, but
the severity of the early missionaries survives, and their mediaeval
system of punishment. Evidently the tribe always entertained extreme
views regarding the relation of the two sexes toward each other,
or else the spirit of the new law would never have been imbibed so
eagerly. "The slightest want of modesty or exhibition of frivolity is
sufficient reason for a husband to leave his wife, and for young women
never to marry," says Padre Juan Fonte, of the Tepehuane Indians. There
is no sign of relaxation in their strictness, or of any inclination
to adopt more modern views on marital misdemeanour.

In the greater number of cases husband and wife live happily together
"till death doth them part." If either should prove unfaithful, they
immediately separate, the wife leaving the children with the husband
and going to her parents. Then the guilty one and the correspondent
are punished by being put in the stocks and given a public whipping
daily for one or two weeks. Neither of the parties thus separated is
permitted to marry again.

If a girl or widow has loved "not wisely, but too well," she is not
interfered with until her child is born. A day or two after that she
and the baby are put into prison for eight or ten days, and she is
compelled to divulge the name of her partner. The man is then arrested
and not only put into prison, but in the stocks besides. There are no
stocks for women, only two horizontal bars to which their hands are
tied, if they refuse to betray their lovers. The two culprits are kept
separate, and their families bring them food. Twice a day messengers
are sent through the village to announce that the punishment is about
to be executed, and many people come to witness it. The judges and the
parents of the delinquents reprimand the unfortunate couple, then from
two to four lashes are on each occasion inflicted, first upon the man
and then upon the woman. These are applied to an unmentionable part
of the back, which is bared, the poor wretches standing with their
hands tied to the pole. The executioner is given mescal that he may
be in proper spirit to strike hard. The woman