The government produced: military registers (razriadnye knigi), lists of personnel assigned as officers in field armies and to some civilian administrative positions; diplomatic books (
posol'skie knigi), divided geographically among Muscovite relations (dela) with Lithuania or Crimea, which contain position papers, accounts of negotiations, and administrative documents dealing with embassies to or from Muscovy; and cadastral surveys (pistsovye knigi), censuses of land allocation or population in order to conduct tax assessments.
At noon the maids arrive, their heavy cotton clothes crinkling with starch, smelling of brilliantine, bringing gourds of
posol. We all drink, sitting in a row on a bench in the corridor, while the maids probe between the brick pavements with their big toes.
The Tzotzil Maya in Chiapas call copal resin bek'tal pom, or flesh incense, and its smoke they call "cigarettes of the gods." Copal, along with
posol, tortillas, and honey wine, is served to propitiate the deities.