ranches of certain sensitive
plants. As the plant closes its leaves, the girls pray that they
may be able to shut themselves up in themselves. There are two kinds
of sensitive plants growing in the neighbourhood of Lajas (_Mimosa
florribunda_, var. _albida_, and _Mimosa invisa_), and recourse
may be had to either of them. Many men emigrate to other pueblos,
though they may in time return. Others remain bachelors all their
lives, and the judges in vain offer them wives. "Why should we take
them?" they say. "You have thrashed us once, and it is not possible
to endure it again." The legitimate way of contracting marriage is to
let the parents make the match. When the old folks have settled the
matter between themselves, they ask the judges to arrest the boy and
girl in question, whereupon the young people are put into prison for
three days. The final arrangements are made before the authorities,
and then the girl goes to the home of the boy to await the arrival
of the priest.

When the Senor Cura is expected in Lajas, all the couples thus united,
as well as all persons suspected of harbouring unsafe tendencies, are
arrested. On the priest's arrival, he finds most of the young people of
the place in prison, waiting for him to marry them. For each ceremony
the Indians have to pay $5, and from now on every married couple
has to pay $1.50 per year as subsidy for the priest. No marriage
in Lajas is contracted outside of the prison. Crescencio himself,
when about to marry a Tepehuane woman, barely escaped arrest. Only
by threatening to leave them did he avoid punishment; but his bride
had to submit to the custom of her tribe.

Contrary to what one might expect, unhappy unions are rare. Probably
the young people are glad to rest in the safe harbour of matrimony,
after experiencing how much the way in and out of it is beset with
indignities and leads through the prison gates. However, imprisonment
for love-making does not appear so absurd to the aboriginal mind as it
does to us, and the tribe has accommodated itself to it. I learned that
some of the boys and girls after a whipping go to their homes laughing.

The obligation to denounce young people whom one has found talking
together, under penalty of being punished one's self for the omission,
does not create the animosity that might be expected. Besides, the
law on this point is none too strictly obeyed or enforced.

According to Crescencio, the census taken in 1894 enumerat