98 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 33 



A very old pifalka owned by an informant (pi. 32, 4) was of stone 

 (today pifalka are often made of wood). It was approximately 4 

 inches long, 2 inches wide, and ^ inch thick and had one hole as a 

 ventage. Through a perforation on each side, which the informant 

 called ears, a cord was passed so that the pifalka could be suspended 

 from the neck. Following the old custom, she noted, the cord should 

 be made of the bark of either pelti, maqui, or totora. The bark is 

 warmed over a fire, rubbed between the palms of the hands until soft, 

 then boiled in water, cooled until lukewarm, and then pulled apart into 

 strands. The following day the strands are rolled between the hands 

 to the length needed by the person who is to use the pifglka. "It must 

 be long enough to reach around the person's neck and part way down 

 the chest." Today, more often a colored ribbon is used in place of the 

 bark cord. A pifalka is sounded by holding it with ventage at the top, 

 and blowing across the ventage, as one does in playing a flute. 



An informant had made a trutruka by splitting lengthwise a stock 

 of green quila, approximately 8 feet long, removing the pith, then 

 tying two parts back into position with iiocha and pulling over them 

 the dried intestine of a horse. At the farther end he inserted and 

 fastened securely a portion of the horn of an ox. "Without it there 

 is no tone," he remarked. The other end, the one used for blowing, 

 he cut off on a i:|:-inch slant. When not in use, the trutruka is filled 

 with water to keep it from shrinking. Two trutruka, collected in the 

 Province of Cautin (Nos. 115 and 116, Museo Araucano de Temuco), 

 are of split colihiie bound together with vine and then overstripped 

 with animal intestine. Each is an inch in diameter and approximately 

 9 feet long. A 6-inch section of the horn of an ox is attached at the 

 farther end of each. 



No kultrui] was seen in the field. Specimen No. 572 in the Museo 

 Araucano de Temuco, collected in Panguipulli and labeled "very old 

 specimen," had been made by stretching the inner lining of a hide 

 over a bowl of wood. It is 5 inches in depth, 13 inches in diameter 

 at the opening and 84 inches at the bottom. Another specimen (No. 

 438 — according to the curator, a recent collection) — contains some 

 articles which make of it a rattle, also. Its depth is 6 inches, diameter 

 at hide end 18 inches and at the bottom 6 inches. Its i8-inch-long 

 drumstick has one end wrapped about with red, white, and purple 

 yarn. 



The wada is a dried, hollowed-out gourd, "big enough to fit into 

 a big hand," into which either seeds of coral or pebbles are put, and 

 the gourd then covered with the inner hide of sheepskin. 



