The Mesoamerican bath, known as "temazcal" in Spanish, from the Nahuatl word "temazcalli", a compound of "temaz" ("steam") and "calli" ("house"), consists of a room, often in the form of a small dome, with an exterior firebox known as "texictle" (teʃict͜ɬe) that heats a small portion of the room's wall made of volcanic rocks; after this wall has been heated, water is poured on it to produce steam, an action known as "tlasas". As the steam accumulates in the upper part of the room a person in charge uses a bough to direct the steam to the bathers who are lying on the ground, with which he later gives them a massage, then the bathers scrub themselves with a small flat river stone and finally the person in charge introduces buckets with water with soap and grass used to rinse. This bath had also ritual importance, and was vinculated to the goddess Toci; it is also therapeutic when medicinal herbs are used in the water for the "tlasas". It is still used in Mexico.