Note 753 — Chapter V · NEW MEXICANS.

'According to their (Tontos') physiology the female, especially the young female, should be allowed meat only when necessary to prevent starvation.' Stratton's Capt. Oatman Girls, p. 115. The Comanches 'enter the marriage state at a very early age frequently before the age of puberty.' Neighbors, in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. ii., p. 132. Whenever a Jicarilla female arrives at a marriageable age, in honor of the 'event the parents will sacrifice all the property they possess, the ceremony being protracted from five to ten days with every demonstration of hilarity.' Steck, in Ind. Aff. Rept., 1863, p. 109; Marcy's Army Life, p. 28-9. Among the Yumas, the applicant for womanhood is placed in an oven or closely covered hut, in which she is steamed for three days, alternating the treatment with plunges into the near river, and maintaining a fast all the time.' Emory's Rept. U. S. and Mex. Boundary Survey, vol. i., pp. 110-11. The Apaches celebrate a feast with singing, dancing, and mimic display when a girl arrives at the marriageable state, during which time the girl remains 'isolated in a huge lodge' and 'listens patiently to the responsibilities of her marriageable condition,' recounted to her by the old men and chiefs. 'After it is finished she is divested of her eyebrows.... A month afterward the eye lashes are pulled out.' Cremony's Apaches, pp. 143, 243-6.