Daily Life-Women worked daily in their homes, cooking, grinding corn, raising the children, tending gardens, checking beehives and weaving cloth for their own clothes and the market. Men and boys went off to tend fields called milpas where maize or corn, beans and squash grew together. The central crop was maize but they also grew chili peppers, sweet potatoes, avocados, tomatoes, papaya, onions and garlic. Some families kept livestock like dogs, ducks and turkeys. Men also hunted deer and a wild pig known as a peccary and fished in the rivers, lakes and oceans. A Maya farming family would start their day early. The extended family all slept together in their one-room house, sleeping on reed mats. Breakfast consisted of a porridge called saka that was made of cornmeal mixed with water and flavored either with chilies or honey. Men and boys wore simple loincloths and added a cape if they were cold. Women and girls wore blouses and long skirts. After breakfast, women started weaving or making pottery. Men and boys went to the fields. During the day, men and boys would eat a dumpling made of corn and filled with vegetables and meat while at work. After work, at home the family would gather for the main meal, filling tortillas—a flat bread made of cornmeal dough—with vegetables and meat or fish when they had it. Everyone would settle down to sleep when it got dark.
