We visited a house where five women were making pretty rattles from little crook-necked gourds.

The workers sat upon the floor, with their materials and tools before them.
The first one rubbed the body of the dry gourds over with an oil paint.
These paints are bought in bulk and mixed upon a flat slab, with a fine-grained, smooth, hard pebble as a grinder, with _aje_ and a white earth dug near the road between Chiapa and Tuxtla Gutierrez.

The _aje_ is a yellow, putty-like mass which gives a brilliant, lacquer-like lustre; the white earth causes the color to adhere to the surface to which it is applied.

The second woman rubbed the neck of the gourd with green paint; the third painted the line of junction of the two colors with white, using a brush; the fourth brought out the lustre of the before dull object by rubbing it upon a pad of cotton cloth upon her knee, giving a final touch by careful rubbing with a tuft of cotton-wool; with a brush, the final worker rapidly painted on the lustrous surface delicate floral or geometric decoration.

Though representing so much delicate and ingenious labor, these pretty toys were sold at the price of two for a _medio_ (three cents in United States currency).
The _aje_ which gives the brilliant lustre to this work deserves more than a passing notice.