90 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 33 



the beginning of a new moon, it will rain until full moon ; but from 

 full moon to no moon, then, one can expect fair weather." Weather 

 was not predicted by activities of birds or other animals, "but some- 

 times when we go to the stores to do some buying, we hear them say 

 that the weather is going to be unsettled, or so; persons there have 

 read the newspapers." The bull roarer (runrun) was not used to 

 produce rain; it was merely a toy (pp. 105-106). 



NATURAL PHENOMENA 



It is believed that wind causes lightning and that thunder is God's 

 way of letting people know that He has been offended. The thunder- 

 bird was not known to informants. According to Cooper's sources 

 of the first half of the seventeenth century (1946, p. 747), dramatic 

 catastrophic phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions, thunder, lightning, 

 river floods, and tidal waves, were consistently associated with pillan. 

 An association exists today between volcanoes, thunder and pillan. 

 "Both volcanoes and thunder are called pillafi," said an old man. "One 

 of our horses was born perfectly white," said another informant, 

 "just like the volcano Lanin is white [snow-covered], and so we called 

 the horse Pillan. As a little boy I traveled to Argentina with my 

 father. As we rode along he pointed at every volcano and called 

 each pillaii." 



Schoolchildren knew of no significance attached to isolated stars, 

 constellations, or the Milky Way. An Alepue woman in her forties 

 called the morning star wiin yelfe. "We have no beliefs about the 

 morning star, except that when it can be seen we know dawn is nearly 

 here." The Milky Way, called rapuapeu, she had heard spoken of as 

 a bridge in the sky. According to Cooper's sources, it was the heavenly 

 river, or the road of the "fairies" (1946, p. 753). The Alepue woman 

 called Orion weluwitrau, a word which Felix Jose records as perhaps 

 meaning the Southern Cross (1916, vol, i, p. 251). 



An eclipse of the sun omened something undesirable, such as war 

 or the death of an important person — "a person like the president of 

 Chile." The loo-y ear-old Cofiaripe man noted that everyone was 

 frightened when there was an eclipse of the sun: "We feared the 

 end of the world was not far off, but we did nothing about it ; every- 

 one sat very quiet until it was over with." According to Cooper, an 

 eclipse of both sun and moon was spoken of as its death (1946, 

 P- 753)- ^^ eclipse of the moon, according to most informants, had 

 no significance. "No one was afraid of an eclipse of the moon; in 

 fact, we barely took notice of it for people were asleep when it oc- 



