Читать книгу The City of the Sacred Well онлайн

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Within, the Maya home is very simple. There are no beds as in ancient times; the native has adopted a Spanish innovation, seeking his rest in a hammock suspended from wooden pegs set in the wall. The hammocks are taken down when not in use. A simple stool or two, a bench or a chest, possibly a table, and the ever-present shrine constitute the furniture. Not infrequently there is an American-made sewing-machine. The kitchen is outside, in another smaller building, and the stove consists merely of a crude stone oven or heap of stones. The bath-room and laundry, where there is a wooden trough to hold water, also is outdoors. At meal-times the family sits on stools about a pot or vessel containing the pièce de résistance, and the use of fingers is not frowned upon.

The natives not resident in the towns or cities are for the most part employed on the haciendas, the majority of which are engaged in the raising of henequen. A few years ago there appeared a series of magazine articles, under some such heading as “Barbarous Mexico,” describing in the most approved yellow-journal style the cruelty and tyranny of the Mexican planters. I suppose there really are some isolated cases of cruelty, but in general the treatment of native workers by the plantation-owners leaves little to criticize. The native is free to leave one employer to seek another. His pay is good and he certainly is not overworked. On nearly every hacienda ample provision is made for entertainment and the fiestas and dances so dear to his heart. Many native families have lived and labored on one plantation for several generations—a fair indication that they are not ill-treated. One of the atrocities recited in the magazine articles just mentioned was the tying of an Indian to a post, where he was whipped severely. The whipping-post has existed, but its use was fostered by the Indians themselves and was reserved for the habitual drunkard or him who repeatedly abused his wife and children. Possibly a similar course of treatment might be beneficial to some citizens of the United States.