and the pack was attached to a carrying-frame and exposed on a mountain-top. As stated before, the souls of women dying in childbirth were deified under the name of Ciuapipiltin, and their bodies were accorded special treatment. The corpse, clad in its best garments, was borne by the husband to the courtyard of the temple dedicated to the Ciuapipiltin, where it was buried. On the way it was escorted by a retinue of midwives armed with swords, and the husband and his friends kept watch over the grave for four nights. 
Fig. 15.—Carved stone slab from Tlacolula, Oaxaca. (After Seler) These precautions were necessary to prevent young warriors or sorcerers from seizing the body in order to obtain the left arm, or middle finger of the left hand and the hair of the deceased. It was believed that the finger and hair, if carried in the warrior's shield, would render the possessor invincible, while the hand was a powerful charm used by robbers to cast sleep upon the inmates of a house, as described on p. 98.
When we come to consider the Mixtec and Zapotec, we find inhumation the rule, indeed the Zapotec abhorred cremation, considering it destructive of the soul. Nor was the method always simple inhumation, but secondary burial. The body was placed in the ground with feet to the east, and the bones were collected subsequently and placed in a vase which was deposited in a stone vault in a mound, the doorway being closed with a sculptured slab (Fig. 15). Both peoples also employed caves to some extent as receptacles of the dead. Simple
