abour. They fetch
wood and water; dress the victuals; make, mend, and clean the tents;
cure the skins; make them into mantles; spin and manufacture ponchos;
pack up every thing for a journey, even the tent poles; load, unload,
and arrange the baggage; straiten the girths of the horses; carry the
lance before their husbands; and at the end of the journey set up the
tents. Sickness or even the most advanced pregnancy give no relief from
these labours, and it would be reckoned ignominious in the husbands to
give them any assistance. The women of noble families may have slaves to
relieve them of these labours; but when in want of these, must undergo
the same fatigues as the rest. Yet the tribes of the southern extremity
of America are not brutal to their women like those in the north, and
the marriages only endure during pleasure, though those who have
children seldom separate. The husband invariably protects his wife, even
when in the wrong; and if detected in any criminal intercourse, all his
anger falls upon the paramour, who is cruelly beaten, unless he can
atone for the injury by payment. Their jugglers sometimes persuade them
to send their wives into the woods, to prostitute themselves to the
first person they meet, which is obviously a device for consoling
themselves from the celibacy to which they are condemned. The husbands
readily obey these directions; but there are women in whom native
modesty overpowers superstition, who refuse obedience to their husbands
on such occasions, and bid defiance to the wizard.

The dresses of all these tribes are formed of skins; but all except the
_serranos_ or mountaineers, weave mantles or ponchos of woollen yarn,
beautifully died of various colours, which when wrapped round the body
reach from the neck to the calf of the legs. A similar mantle is tied
round the waist and reaches to the ankles. Besides these they have a
three-cornered piece of dressed hide, of which two of the corners are
tied round the waist, and the third, being passed between the legs is
fastened behind. The hair is tied up from behind with the points
upwards, by means of a woollen band bound many times round the head; but
they are fond of wearing hats when they can get them from the Spaniards.
They paint their faces red or black, and wear necklaces and bracelets of
sky-blue beads. When on horseback they wear a particular kind of cloaks,
having a slit in the middle through which they put their heads, and the
s