WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 59 



sometimes an entire twist is so rolled. Twists or braids are made 

 toward the front, tied together there, and kept from falling forward 

 while working either by being folded on the crown and again tied 

 there, or by being slung over the head and allowed to hang down the 

 back (pis. 6, <?; 56.) A woman's manner of hair dressing did not 

 indicate whether or not she was married. 



To make hair grow, women mash all parts of piliaroral (unidenti- 

 fied), a plant that grows in swamps, in a dish, pour boiling water on 

 it, and rub the scalp with the liquid. Keukeukina (unidentified), a 

 climbing vine that grows in woods, is also used. When asked if men, 

 too, use this preparation, the informant answered, "Most certainly not ! 

 Why should men want so much hair?" Men do not become bald. 

 An occasional person has gray hair. 



Formerly men cut the hair shoulder length ; they did not wish to 

 appear like women. Most men today have the hair cut short as Chilean 

 men do. An occasional one wears his long — generally he is a man who 

 has few contacts with Chileans or is an old man, especially a cacique. 

 Such men either wear braids, or have the hair cut ear-lobe length and 

 wear a band around the forehead tied at the back of the head to keep 

 the hair from eyes and face. The band (trariilor|ko), formerly woven 

 of yarn, is now usually a square piece of cloth folded to form a tri- 

 angle and then again folded to about i^ inches in width. It is tied 

 in a knot at the back of the head ; ends hang loose. An informant 

 reasoned from his observations that men today who still wear braids 

 have a keen appreciation of the old culture, and added: "I noticed 

 while visiting south of here that Mapuche men who were pointed out 

 to me as having been best able to defend their rights against the 

 Chilean Government were those who still wore braids." 



Most married men wear a mustache and are proud of it. Often 

 they let it grow past the corners of the mouth (pis. 25 and 26). Rarely 

 does a man have a growth of hair in front of the ears. His beard is 

 generally scant, and he usually depilates it. Men who do have heavier 

 beards remove them by first rubbing the face well with warm dry 

 ashes taken from the hearth — "ashes of any kind of tree will do" — 

 and then shaving the hairs off with the edge of a clam shell, such as 

 are found in local rivers. After shaving, the face is smeared over 

 with yellow clay and then washed. "It is the same clay we use in 

 pottery making; it heals the face. My husband always bathes and 

 shaves before he goes to the Sisters." 



Most informants agreed that it was not customary, formerly, for 

 men, except caciques, to wear earrings — "although some men wore 

 them, large ones, they were." A cacique wore only one, and it was 



