They are very fond of dancing and of music, but they do not perform the former either gracefully or freely, nor have they any variety or art in its execution. They have no talent or gift for playing an instrument either. They are wont to sing in their idle moments or even while at work, but sadly and in a monotone.
The woman who finds herself pregnant works until the very last moment before the child is born, and resumes her tasks immediately afterward, as soon as the baby is attended to. They leave their children so much to themselves, and give them so little care, that they are forever creeping around on the floor in all the mire and dirt, and always completely naked. A diaper and a tiny _hipil_ are all they get for the first few days of their life. Around wrists and ankles they occasionally will tie tiny cords made of blue cotton to protect them, so they say, from epilepsy. Those who can afford to do so will hang a little rosary of beads interspersed with wooden honey-berries around their necks and put tiny earrings in their ears.
A pregnant Indian woman will not go outdoors during an eclipse, in order to avoid her child being born with spots or ugly birthmarks on its body; nor do they visit women who have just given birth to a child, because it is their belief that the babies would become ill with pains in their bowels.
As soon as the child is six months old they name a godfather and a godmother for the ceremony of opening the baby's limbs for the first time. To this end they set a table with some kind of pottage, and the godfather makes nine rounds of the table, with the baby placed astride one of his hips, which is the way in which it will be carried thereafter by its mother. Then they place in the child's hands, if it is a girl, a needle, a spindle, and the implements with which they weave their cloth; if it is a boy, he is given a hatchet, a machete, and other implements he is expected to use when grown up. These godparents enjoy the same distinction as those at the christening.
The women do not care about knowing their own age, and they keep track of the age of their children only until they have attained about six or eight years; after that they forget it. Although they grow into young manhood or womanhood very quickly, really old age comes late, except in the appearance of the women, who at the age of thirty-five look like women of forty-five.