Permanent shelters,
some of them commodious stone structures, are often erected on these
outlooks where a person remains on guard night and day (Pl. LXVIII),
at night burning a fire to frighten the wild hogs away.
At this season of the year when practically all the people of the
pueblo are in the sementeras. it is most interesting to watch the
homecoming of the laborers at night. At early dusk they may be
seen coming in over the trails leading from the sementeras to the
pueblo in long processions. The boys and girls 5 or 6 years old or
more, most of them entirely naked, come playing or dancing along --
the boys often marking time by beating a tin can or two sticks --
seemingly as full of life as when they started out in the morning. The
younger children are toddling by the side of their father or mother,
a small, dirty hand smothered in a large, labor-cracked one; or else
are carried on their father's back or shoulder, or perhaps astride
their mother's hip. The old men and women, almost always unsightly
and ugly, who go to the sementera only to guard and not to toil, come
slowly and feebly home, often picking their way with a staff. There is
much laughing and coquetting among the young people.
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