Both men and women take for the first meal of the day a hot thick drink known as _posol_, made from ground corn and water, often flavored with honey; later they eat tortillas, beans, and chili pepper, accompanied with a cold drink made from corn. In the evening they make their principal repast, which includes game, pork, fish, or eggs, with beans and other vegetables, plenty of chili pepper, and either chocolate or some hot drink made from corn. They use a great variety of drinks concocted of ground maize and water, including _chocosacan_, a solution of the masa from which tortillas are made, in water, flavored with a little salt; _pinol_, a solution of ground toasted corn seasoned with pimento and other spices; _posol_, boiled corn ground to a paste and mixed with hot water; _sachà_, very much like posol, but the corn is not cooked soft, so that the beverage is gritty; and, lastly, _atol_, which is chocosacan boiled till the mixture becomes thick and glutinous. Tortillas, or corn cake, sometimes eaten hot, sometimes cold, and at times toasted, are the Indian's chief mainstay in the way of food, as they appear at every meal, and at a pinch he can exist on them alone for a very long period. Tortillas are made in the following way: The grain is first soaked overnight in a lye of wood ashes, treatment which softens the grain and loosens the outer husk. The softened grain is next ground into a fine paste on an oblong stone, slightly concave, known as a metate (_ka_), by means of a stone rolling pin thicker in the middle than at the ends, designated as a brazo (_u kabka_). This procedure takes considerable time, as the grain has to be ground a number of times in order to get the paste to the required degree of fineness. When the paste or masa is ready it is flattened by hand into small round cakes (tortillas), which are baked on an iron or earthen plaque (_xamach_) over a glowing wood fire.