country, and certain small dogs which they also eat, and many deer and fish. It is a very salubrious land. The Indians were very civilised in their way of life, like those of Mexico, for they were a people who had come from that country, and they had nearly the same language.[1] These people went about well dressed in the Indian fashion; the women with their mantles like those of Coiba, and another description of covering which, descending from the head, covered the bosom and half the arms. The men covered their loins with very long cloths made of cotton, which they passed in many folds from the hips to the thighs. In the villages they wore their mantles like cloaks under the arms. They had a great quantity of cotton cloth, and they held their markets in the open squares, where they traded. The land was poor in gold, and they traded with cacao, as in New Spain. They had many beautiful women. Their parents had a custom, when they were maidens old enough to marry, of sending them to work for their marriages, and thus they went through the land working publicly, and as soon as they had wherewithal to furnish a house, they returned to their parents and were married. The husbands were so much under subjection that if they made their wives angry, they were turned out of doors, and the wives even raised their hands against them. The husband would go to the neighbours and beg them to ask his wife to let him come back, and not be angry with him. The wives made their husbands attend on them, and do everything like servant lads.[2] They had another custom, which was that when one of them was married, a man whom they held as a pope, and who lived in a temple, had to sleep
- ↑ Five languages were spoken in Nicaragua. The Charibizi, the Cholotecan (being the most ancient), the Choutal, the Orotinan, and Mexican. Herrera.
- ↑ Herrera also says that the men swept the houses and performed other menial services, and that in some places they even spun, having their arms naked and painted.
