6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, I33 



thorities give numbers varying from 97,000 to 150,000. A census 

 taken by the Capuchin Fathers in the area of their activities, the 

 Apostolic Vicariate of the Araucania, that is, between the river Cautin 

 on the north, the rivers Enco, Pedro, and Ifiaque on the south, the 

 Pacific on the west, and Argentina on the east, gives 67,873 as the 

 number of Araucanians in that area. (See under Anonymous, Estado 

 de la Iglesia en Chile, 1946, p. 85.) 



Araucanian informants in Chile spoke of themselves and their peo- 

 ple as "puro Mapuche"; of mixed-bloods as mestizos (epu moUfiin 

 che, double-blooded people), and of nonmixed Chileans of Spanish 

 origin as "Chilenos blancos." In all probability some "puro Mapuche" 

 have European blood of earlier days. "My two oldest children, the 

 ones of my first husband, have red hair ; he had red hair, also. Most 

 certainly, we are full-blooded Mapuche!" The literature records 

 Spanish armies and Spanish prisoners of war, both men and women, 

 as having left traces among them. Also, in Alepue area, it has been 

 handed down as unwritten history that about 200 years ago two Dutch 

 merchant vessels were wrecked off the coast at Chan Chan. Inform- 

 ants pointed out the place. Those of the crew who survived were 

 rescued by Araucanians, and "since there was no place else for them 

 to go, they lived here, and we allowed them to marry our women." 

 Old persons in Alepue area told that when they were children this 

 incident was related by old people. Quite evidently these early mixed- 

 bloods are considered pure Araucanians today; only offspring of 

 recent marriages between Araucanians and other persons are called 

 mestizos. 



Among those recognized by the Chilean Araucanians themselves as 

 pure Mapuche there appear to be two physical types : one with a small, 

 flat nose and round, flat face ; another with a high-ridged nose, long 

 face, and high cheek bones.^ Both have circular nostrils. A rather 

 common characteristic is a low hairline over the forehead, with hair 

 at the temples often reaching the eyebrows. 



According to Cooper's sources, the Araucanians of Chile can be 

 grouped justifiably on historical, cultural, and linguistic evidence into 

 the Pehuenche or Pewenche of the Andean highlands (People of the 

 Pines), the Picunche (People of the North), the Mapuche (People of 

 the Land), and the Huilliche (People of the South) west of the 

 Andes. My Araucanian informants noted that all the above are 

 Mapuche and are so called unless the speaker wants to refer to people 



2 Schaeuble (1939, pp. 63-66) reports that those with round, flat faces and flat 

 noses live on the Pacific coast and to the south; those with more protruding 

 noses and less flat faces, in the east, that is, in the Andean regions. Both types 

 were found in all areas covered in the present study. 



