The people begin to marry when they are fifteen years old, and they may live to be a hundred.  The arrangement of marriages by the parents of the boy without consulting him is a custom still largely followed.  On five occasions, every eighth day, they go to ask for the bride they have selected.  If she consents to marry the man, then all is right.  One man of my acquaintance did not know his “affinity” when his parents informed him that they had a bride for him.  Three weeks later they were married, and, as in the fairy-tale, lived happily ever afterward.  His parents and grandparents fasted before the wedding.  In San Francisco I saw men and women who were married, or engaged to be married, bathing together in the river.

Fasting is also a notable feature in the religion of the Coras, and is considered essential for producing rain and good crops.  Abstinence from drinking water for two days during droughts is sometimes observed.  The principal men on such occasions may undertake to do the fasting for the rest of the people.  They then shut themselves up in La Comunidad, sit down, smoke, and keep their eyes on the ground.

The Coras of the canon are not always in summer in accord with Father Sun, because he is fierce, producing sickness and killing men and animals.  Chulavete, the Morning Star, who is the protecting genius of the Coras, has constantly to watch the Sun lest he should harm the people.  In ancient times, when the Sun first appeared, the Morning Star, who is cool and disliked heat, shot him in the middle of the breast, just as he had journeyed nearly half across the sky.  The Sun fell down on earth, but an old man brought him to life again, so that he could tramp back and make a fresh start.

The Morning Star is the principal great god of the Coras.  In the small hours of the morning they frequently go to some spring and wash themselves by his light.  He is their brother, a young Indian with bow and arrow, who intercedes with the other gods to help the people in their troubles.  At their dances they first call him to be present, and tell their wants to him, that he may report them to the Sun and the Moon and the rest of the gods.

A pathetic story of the modern adventures of this their great hero-god graphically sets forth the Indian’s conception of the condition in which he finds himself after the arrival of the white man.  Chulavete was poor, and the rich people did not like him.  But afterward they took to him, because they found that he was a nice man, and they asked him to come and eat with them.  He went to their houses dressed like the “neighbours.”  But once when they invited him he came like an Indian boy, almost naked.  He stopped outside of the house, and the host came out with a torch of pinewood to see who it was.  He did not recognise Chulavete, and called out to him:  “Get away, you Indian pig!  What are you doing here?” And with his torch he burned stripes down the arms and legs of the shrinking Chulavete.  Next day Chulavete received another invitation to eat with the “neighbours.”  This time he made himself into a big bearded fellow, with the complexion of a man half white, and he put on the clothes in which they knew him.  He came on a good horse, had a nice blanket over his shoulder, wore a sombrero and a good sabre.  They met him at the door and led him into the house.