These courts, which are
called patios, were generally several acres in extent and at the most
flourishing period of the missions each settlement often gave shelter to
over a thousand people.
Behind the central court is the home of the unmarried women. This, and
the rooms for their work, open on a separate square where there is shade
from orange and fig trees and a bathing pond supplied by the zanja, or
water ditch. Here square-figured, heavy-featured Indian girls are busy
spinning and weaving thread into cloth. Others are cutting out and
sewing garments. Some, squatted on the ground, are grinding corn into a
coarse meal for the atole, or mush. At the zanja several are engaged in
washing clothes. Here these girls live under the care of an old Indian
woman, and unless she accompanies them they may not, until they are
married, go outside these walls. Near the mission we visit a long row of
small adobe buildings, the homes of the families of the Christian
Indians; a neat, busy settlement where the little ones, comfortably
clothed, play about attended by the older children, while the mothers
work for the padres four or five hours daily.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111