Many girls die or are injured for
life in consequence of the hardships they endure at this time. Their
only occupations during their seclusion are spinning and weaving.[134]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Yuracares of Bolivia.]
Among the Yuracares, an Indian tribe of Bolivia, at the eastern foot of
the Andes, when a girl perceives the signs of puberty, she informs her
parents. The mother weeps and the father constructs a little hut of palm
leaves near the house. In this cabin he shuts up his daughter so that
she cannot see the light, and there she remains fasting rigorously for
four days. Meantime the mother, assisted by the women of the
neighbourhood, has brewed a large quantity of the native intoxicant
called _chicha_, and poured it into wooden troughs and palm leaves. On
the morning of the fourth day, three hours before the dawn, the girl's
father, having arrayed himself in his savage finery, summons all his
neighbours with loud cries. The damsel is seated on a stone, and every
guest in turn cuts off a lock of her hair, and running away hides it in
the hollow trunk of a tree in the depths of the forest. When they have
all done so and seated themselves again gravely in the circle, the girl
offers to each of them a calabash full of very strong _chicha_. Before
the wassailing begins, the various fathers perform a curious operation
on the arms of their sons, who are seated beside them.
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