92 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 33 



only 19 kullkull have been heard, the 19 will then blow in unison hop- 

 ing that the twentieth will hear them and answer. No boat will sail 

 far away from sounds of the kullkull ; none has been known to have 

 gotten lost because of a fog, but it has happened that one could not 

 hear the kullkull and consequently got away and was taken out to 

 sea by the wind and lost. 



No informant had heard of smoke signaling among Chilean Arau- 

 canians (it was recorded by one of Cooper's sources, 1946, p. 754), 

 but an old Panguipulli man knew that Argentine Araucanians who 

 were lost climbed to a hilltop — "there are many hilltops there, you 

 know" — and built a fire to attract attention. "Anyone seeing the fire 

 knew a lost person had kindled it, and should be rescued." 



measurements: linear, surface, quantity, WEIGHT, DISTANCE 



Araucanian traditional linear measurements, still in use today, are 

 the pichi duke (the Spanish jeme), the distance between tip of thumb 

 and first finger at farthest stretch ; the fiicha duke (the Spanish 

 cuarta), the distance between tip of thumb and little finger at farthest 

 stretch; and the wima. If a wima is measured by a man, it will ex- 

 tend from his Adams apple, or the middle of his chest, to the tips of 

 the fingers of an outstretched arm, or, if he is a large man, only to the 

 tip of the thumb. A woman measures a wima from the shoulder joint 

 of one arm to the tips of the fingers of the other arm. 



Both the pichi duke and the fiicha duke are used in measuring 

 small things, such as small pieces of lumber or standard widths and 

 lengths of woven articles, such as choapino and lama. One woman 

 demonstrating measuring with the pichi duke slid the tip of her first 

 finger into the position of her thumb, moved the thumb forward to 

 another complete handstretch, and repeated this as often as she needed 

 to. Another woman did the reverse — she slid her thumb into the 

 position of her finger. 



Wima are used in measuring lengths, such as those needed in build- 

 ing a ruka or a puma trap, or in measuring land. An occasional 

 woman uses it in measuring choapino. "I know the length of my wima 

 because I measured it against a meter measuring stick that a Chilean 

 had." As many wima as are needed for a length of anything are 

 measured off on a strand of yarn, which then serves as a measuring 

 tape. Although, in general, clothing is fitted to the wearer — a poncho, 

 for example, must reach from side of neck straight across the shoulder 

 and down the arm to the knuckles of the hand and be long enough to 

 touch the knees — the weaver, for convenience sake, may take the 

 measurements on strands of yarn also. 



