in the expenses. Or if the parents of
both the young couple are niggardly, they divide it and keep it. If
they are generous, they use it in the pamamuhay, or furnishing of
the house of the couple. Consequently, there is no regular custom
in this. The nearest relatives give the couple a jewel as a mark of
affection, but do not give money. These jewels belong to the bride,
and to no one else.

503. Three days before the wedding all the relatives of both parties
assemble at the house where it is to be celebrated, to make the
palapala, which is a sort of bower, by which they make the house larger
so that all the guests may be accommodated easily. They spend three
days in making this. The next three days are those customary to the
wedding and its feast. Consequently, there are six days of expense,
of racket, of reveling, of dancing and singing, until they fall
asleep with fatigue and repletion, all helter-skelter without any
distinction. Often from this perverse river the devil in turn gets
his little harvest--now in quarrels and mishaps which have happened,
and now in other more common sins; the greatest vigilance of the
father ministers is insufficient to stop these wrongs, and there are
no human forces (although there ought to be) which can banish these
pernicious ogalis.

504. In the olden days they employed certain ridiculous ceremonies,
which had but little decency attending the intercourse of the couple
upon the night of the wedding, customs which have now been totally
uprooted. The least indecent was the coming of the catalona or
babaylana to celebrate the espousals. They brought a hog for this
purpose, and with it and on it performed their rites as in other
sacrifices. The young couple seated themselves on their bridal bed,
in the laps of certain old women who played the part of godmothers of
the espousal. These women fed the young couple with their own hands
from one dish, and they both drank from one vessel. The groom said that
he loved the bride, and she that she loved the groom. Thereupon the
shouts of joy broke out, and cries, and there was singing and dancing
and drinking. Then the catalona arose with great gravity, and so many
were the blessings that she showered down upon the young couple that,
according to some that I have heard among these natives, they would
exceed without any doubt the flatteries of our gypsy men and women,
when they tell the fortune of one who has given them a large reward.

505. If