If a girl or widow has loved “not wisely, but too well,” she is not interfered with until her child is born.  A day or two after that she and the baby are put into prison for eight or ten days, and she is compelled to divulge the name of her partner.  The man is then arrested and not only put into prison, but in the stocks besides.  There are no stocks for women, only two horizontal bars to which their hands are tied, if they refuse to betray their lovers.  The two culprits are kept separate, and their families bring them food.  Twice a day messengers are sent through the village to announce that the punishment is about to be executed, and many people come to witness it.  The judges and the parents of the delinquents reprimand the unfortunate couple, then from two to four lashes are on each occasion inflicted, first upon the man and then upon the woman.  These are applied to an unmentionable part of the back, which is bared, the poor wretches standing with their hands tied to the pole.  The executioner is given mescal that he may be in proper spirit to strike hard.  The woman has to look on while the man is being punished, just as he afterward has to witness his sweetheart’s chastisement.  She opens her eyes “like a cow,” as my informant expressed it, while the man generally looks down.

Many times the judges are ashamed to go through this performance, the character of which is below the standard of propriety of most primitive tribes; but, strange to say, the parents themselves compel them to let the law have its course.  Afterward the girl is handed over to her lover in order that they may become officially married by the Church the next time the priest arrives.  This may not happen for two or three years, but the two are meanwhile allowed to live together, the girl going to her lover’s home.  To avert all the misery in store for her, an unfortunate woman may try to doctor herself by secretly taking a decoction of the leaves of the chalate, a kind of fig-tree.

Sometimes punishment is dealt out to young people for being found talking together.  Outside of her home a woman is absolutely forbidden to speak to any man who does not belong to her own immediate family.  When fetching water, or out on any other errand, she must under no circumstances dally for a chat with a “gentleman friend.”  Even at the dancing-place it is against the law for her to step aside to exchange a few words with any young man.  If discovered in such a compromising position, both offenders are immediately arrested, and their least punishment is two days’ imprisonment.  If their examination by the judges proves that their conversation was on the forbidden topic of love, they get a whipping and may be compelled to marry.